EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) Coverage Initiated at StockNews.com

Research analysts at StockNews.com started coverage on shares of EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) in a report released on Thursday. The firm set a “buy” rating on the communications equipment provider’s stock.

Several other research firms have also recently weighed in on SATS. JPMorgan Chase & Co. began coverage on shares of EchoStar in a research report on Wednesday, January 17th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $18.00 price objective for the company. UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $11.00 to $14.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 5th. Finally, TD Cowen reduced their target price on shares of EchoStar from $39.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 4th. Three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, two have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $24.80.

EchoStar Trading Up 1.7 %

Shares of EchoStar stock opened at $14.25 on Thursday. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.87 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.05 and a beta of 0.68. The company has a quick ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $13.61 and a 200 day simple moving average of $13.87. EchoStar has a 12-month low of $9.53 and a 12-month high of $24.80.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The communications equipment provider reported $1.21 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $0.02 by $1.19. The firm had revenue of $4.16 billion during the quarter. EchoStar had a negative net margin of 36.33% and a positive return on equity of 5.24%. The company’s revenue was up 732.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.59 EPS. Research analysts expect that EchoStar will post -1.11 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other EchoStar news, Director James Defranco bought 70,000 shares of EchoStar stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 6th. The shares were bought at an average price of $13.14 per share, with a total value of $919,800.00. Following the purchase, the director now owns 176,951 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,325,136.14. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this link. Insiders own 55.90% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of SATS. MetLife Investment Management LLC boosted its stake in EchoStar by 26.9% during the 1st quarter. MetLife Investment Management LLC now owns 18,851 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $459,000 after acquiring an additional 3,998 shares during the last quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS boosted its stake in EchoStar by 43.3% during the 1st quarter. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Public School Empls Retrmt SYS now owns 31,969 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $778,000 after acquiring an additional 9,655 shares during the last quarter. BlackRock Inc. boosted its stake in EchoStar by 3.0% during the 1st quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 3,193,659 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $77,734,000 after acquiring an additional 93,524 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP boosted its stake in EchoStar by 3.9% during the 1st quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,688,661 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $41,102,000 after acquiring an additional 63,135 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Covestor Ltd boosted its stake in EchoStar by 2,809.6% during the 1st quarter. Covestor Ltd now owns 5,470 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $133,000 after acquiring an additional 5,282 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

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.