Investors Purchase Large Volume of EchoStar Call Options (NASDAQ:SATS)

EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ:SATS) was the target of some unusual options trading on Tuesday. Investors purchased 33,662 call options on the stock. Thisisanincreaseofapproximately267% compared to the average volume of 9,163 call options.

Institutional Trading of EchoStar

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in SATS. Fifth Third Bancorp raised its stake in EchoStar by 44.5% in the 1st quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 1,841 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $47,000 after acquiring an additional 567 shares during the last quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC raised its stake in EchoStar by 16.6% in the 2nd quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 5,235 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $145,000 after acquiring an additional 746 shares during the last quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue raised its stake in EchoStar by 6.4% in the 2nd quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue now owns 15,055 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $417,000 after acquiring an additional 910 shares during the last quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System raised its stake in EchoStar by 0.7% in the 2nd quarter. California State Teachers Retirement System now owns 128,881 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $3,570,000 after acquiring an additional 944 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Farther Finance Advisors LLC raised its stake in EchoStar by 8,125.0% in the 1st quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 987 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $25,000 after acquiring an additional 975 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

EchoStar Stock Up 77.0%

Shares of EchoStar stock traded up $23.0170 during trading on Tuesday, reaching $52.8970. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 23,542,858 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,984,207. The company has a quick ratio of 1.15, a current ratio of 1.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.28. The company has a market cap of $15.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -50.53 and a beta of 0.94. EchoStar has a 1-year low of $14.90 and a 1-year high of $55.19. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $28.43 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $25.51.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 1st. The communications equipment provider reported ($1.06) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($1.12) by $0.06. The firm had revenue of $3.72 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.80 billion. EchoStar had a negative return on equity of 1.58% and a negative net margin of 2.04%.The business’s quarterly revenue was down 5.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm earned ($0.76) EPS. As a group, equities analysts forecast that EchoStar will post -1.99 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, Citigroup increased their target price on EchoStar from $27.00 to $28.50 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, June 23rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have given a Hold rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $27.88.

About EchoStar

EchoStar Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides networking technologies and services worldwide. The company operates in four segments: Pay-TV, Retail Wireless, 5G Network Deployment, Broadband and Satellite Services. The Pay-TV segment offers a direct broadcast and fixed satellite services; designs, develops, and distributes receiver system; and provides digital broadcast operations, including satellite uplinking/downlinking, transmission and, other services to third-party pay-TV providers; and multichannel, live-linear and on-demand streaming over-the-top internet-based domestic, international, Latino, and Freestream video programming services under the DISH and SLING brand names.