EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) Downgraded to “Hold” Rating by Zacks Research

Zacks Research downgraded shares of EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) from a strong-buy rating to a hold rating in a report issued on Tuesday morning,Zacks.com reports.

Several other research analysts also recently weighed in on SATS. Citigroup upped their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $85.00 to $87.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft set a $105.00 target price on EchoStar in a report on Tuesday, September 9th. Morgan Stanley upped their price target on EchoStar from $59.00 to $91.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Tuesday, September 9th. TD Cowen lifted their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $28.00 to $67.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 27th. Finally, Weiss Ratings reiterated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of EchoStar in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $75.60.

EchoStar Trading Up 0.5%

Shares of NASDAQ SATS traded up $0.35 during midday trading on Tuesday, reaching $69.98. The stock had a trading volume of 2,867,599 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,624,740. EchoStar has a twelve month low of $14.90 and a twelve month high of $85.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.15 and a current ratio of 1.22. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $74.12 and its 200 day moving average price is $44.00. The firm has a market cap of $20.13 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -66.65 and a beta of 0.94.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 6th. The communications equipment provider reported ($44.37) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($1.23) by ($43.14). EchoStar had a negative return on equity of 1.58% and a negative net margin of 2.04%.The company had revenue of $3.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.75 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned ($0.52) EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was down 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that EchoStar will post -1.99 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, COO Paul Gaske sold 750 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $78.32, for a total value of $58,740.00. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, COO John Swieringa sold 154,835 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $81.20, for a total transaction of $12,572,602.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 432 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $35,078.40. This represents a 99.72% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 460,740 shares of company stock worth $35,967,480 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 55.90% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. DLD Asset Management LP purchased a new stake in EchoStar during the third quarter valued at about $2,481,700,000. Contrarius Group Holdings Ltd bought a new position in shares of EchoStar during the 3rd quarter valued at about $98,819,000. Darsana Capital Partners LP raised its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 15.5% during the 2nd quarter. Darsana Capital Partners LP now owns 8,960,000 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $248,192,000 after buying an additional 1,201,672 shares in the last quarter. Hennessy Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in shares of EchoStar during the 3rd quarter valued at about $42,464,000. Finally, Evergreen Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of EchoStar by 6,942.9% during the third quarter. Evergreen Capital Management LLC now owns 522,022 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $39,862,000 after buying an additional 514,610 shares during the last quarter. 33.62% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.