Viasat (NASDAQ:VSAT) Shares Gap Up Following Analyst Upgrade

Viasat Inc. (NASDAQ:VSAT) shares gapped up before the market opened on Tuesday after Needham & Company LLC raised their price target on the stock from $25.00 to $45.00. The stock had previously closed at $36.98, but opened at $39.00. Needham & Company LLC currently has a buy rating on the stock. Viasat shares last traded at $38.2910, with a volume of 801,044 shares.

Several other equities analysts also recently issued reports on VSAT. Barclays reissued an “underweight” rating and set a $23.00 price target (up from $10.00) on shares of Viasat in a report on Wednesday, October 1st. William Blair reaffirmed an “outperform” rating on shares of Viasat in a report on Wednesday, August 27th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of Viasat in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Raymond James Financial upgraded Viasat from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and set a $52.00 price target on the stock in a research report on Monday. Finally, Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of Viasat in a research report on Thursday, August 7th. Five research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, three have issued a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $32.75.

Insider Activity at Viasat

In other news, Director Richard A. Baldridge sold 100,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, September 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $31.00, for a total transaction of $3,100,000.00. Following the sale, the director owned 197,161 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $6,111,991. This trade represents a 33.65% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 2.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Viasat

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of VSAT. Long Focus Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of Viasat in the first quarter valued at approximately $24,695,000. OCO Capital Partners L.P. raised its holdings in shares of Viasat by 60.0% during the second quarter. OCO Capital Partners L.P. now owns 6,000,000 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $87,600,000 after acquiring an additional 2,250,000 shares during the period. Nuveen LLC bought a new stake in Viasat in the 1st quarter valued at $20,593,000. Hennessy Advisors Inc. boosted its stake in Viasat by 12,255.3% in the 3rd quarter. Hennessy Advisors Inc. now owns 1,404,800 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $41,161,000 after purchasing an additional 1,393,430 shares during the period. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. increased its holdings in Viasat by 96.8% during the 2nd quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 2,680,387 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $39,134,000 after purchasing an additional 1,318,524 shares in the last quarter. 86.05% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Viasat Price Performance

The stock has a market cap of $5.23 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -8.47 and a beta of 1.24. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $33.51 and a 200-day simple moving average of $22.01. The company has a current ratio of 2.11, a quick ratio of 1.87 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.42.

Viasat (NASDAQ:VSAT) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, November 7th. The communications equipment provider reported $0.09 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.11) by $0.20. Viasat had a negative return on equity of 6.37% and a negative net margin of 13.11%.The company had revenue of $1.14 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.15 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.23) earnings per share. Viasat’s revenue for the quarter was down 2.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts expect that Viasat Inc. will post -0.54 EPS for the current year.

About Viasat

Viasat, Inc provides broadband and communications products and services worldwide. The company's Satellite Services segment offers satellite-based fixed broadband services, including broadband internet access and voice over internet protocol services to consumers and businesses; in-flight entertainment and aviation software services to commercial airlines and private business jets; satellite-based connectivity services; mobile broadband services, including satellite-based internet services to energy offshore vessels, cruise ships, consumer ferries, and yachts; and energy services, which include ultra-secure solutions IP connectivity, bandwidth-optimized over-the-top applications, industrial internet-of-things big data enablement, and industry-leading machine learning analytics.