EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) Shares Up 3.3%

EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)’s share price rose 3.3% during trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as high as $14.36 and last traded at $14.34. Approximately 78,218 shares traded hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 97% from the average daily volume of 2,446,447 shares. The stock had previously closed at $13.88.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

SATS has been the topic of several research analyst reports. TD Cowen cut their price objective on EchoStar from $39.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, March 4th. UBS Group upped their price objective on EchoStar from $11.00 to $14.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 5th. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on EchoStar from $14.25 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, April 3rd. StockNews.com assumed coverage on EchoStar in a research report on Saturday, April 13th. They set a “sell” rating on the stock. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. assumed coverage on EchoStar in a research report on Wednesday, January 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $18.00 price target on the stock. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, EchoStar presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $23.00.

EchoStar Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99, a quick ratio of 0.53 and a current ratio of 0.61. The business has a 50 day moving average of $13.62 and a two-hundred day moving average of $13.48.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The communications equipment provider reported $1.21 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.02 by $1.19. The firm had revenue of $4.16 billion during the quarter. EchoStar had a positive return on equity of 5.24% and a negative net margin of 36.33%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 732.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the company earned $0.59 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that EchoStar Co. will post -1.28 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director James Defranco acquired 70,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 6th. The stock was purchased at an average cost of $13.14 per share, for a total transaction of $919,800.00. Following the purchase, the director now directly owns 176,951 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,325,136.14. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. 55.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On EchoStar

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. BlackRock Inc. raised its stake in EchoStar by 13.6% in the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 4,444,060 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $77,060,000 after buying an additional 531,537 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in EchoStar by 16.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 4,046,742 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $67,055,000 after buying an additional 581,159 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in EchoStar by 8.4% in the first quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,366,819 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $43,289,000 after buying an additional 182,601 shares during the last quarter. Pennant Select LLC purchased a new stake in EchoStar in the fourth quarter valued at about $36,892,000. Finally, Beryl Capital Management LLC purchased a new stake in EchoStar in the third quarter valued at about $36,090,000. 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.