EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) Receives Consensus Rating of “Moderate Buy” from Brokerages

Shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) have received a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” from the six analysts that are covering the company, MarketBeat.com reports. Four analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating on the company. The average 12-month price target among brokers that have covered the stock in the last year is $23.00.

A number of research analysts have commented on the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. assumed coverage on EchoStar in a research report on Wednesday, January 17th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $18.00 price objective on the stock. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of EchoStar from $11.00 to $14.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 5th. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of EchoStar in a research report on Saturday, April 13th. They set a “sell” rating for the company. TD Cowen decreased their price objective on EchoStar from $39.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 4th. Finally, Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on EchoStar from $14.25 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, April 3rd.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other EchoStar news, Director James Defranco acquired 110,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 8th. The shares were acquired at an average price of $13.48 per share, for a total transaction of $1,482,800.00. Following the acquisition, the director now directly owns 306,951 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,137,699.48. The acquisition was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Corporate insiders own 55.90% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of EchoStar

Several hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of SATS. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of EchoStar by 1.0% during the third quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,465,583 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $58,049,000 after acquiring an additional 33,451 shares in the last quarter. Pennant Select LLC acquired a new stake in shares of EchoStar in the 4th quarter valued at about $36,892,000. Beryl Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar in the third quarter valued at about $36,090,000. Pennant Investors LP acquired a new position in shares of EchoStar during the fourth quarter worth about $35,679,000. Finally, Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. grew its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 53.8% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,095,327 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $18,150,000 after buying an additional 383,030 shares in the last quarter. 33.62% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

EchoStar Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:SATS opened at $16.00 on Tuesday. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.34 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.30 and a beta of 0.69. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99, a current ratio of 0.61 and a quick ratio of 0.53. The business’s fifty day moving average price is $13.95 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $13.50. EchoStar has a fifty-two week low of $9.53 and a fifty-two week high of $24.80.

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

EchoStar Company Profile

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.