EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) Earns Sell Rating from Analysts at StockNews.com

StockNews.com started coverage on shares of EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) in a research note released on Saturday morning. The firm issued a sell rating on the communications equipment provider’s stock.

A number of other equities analysts have also recently issued reports on SATS. UBS Group boosted 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. TD Cowen lowered their price target on EchoStar from $39.00 to $38.00 and set an outperform rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 4th. Morgan Stanley cut their price objective 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. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. assumed coverage on EchoStar in a research note on Wednesday, January 17th. They set a neutral rating and a $18.00 target price on the stock. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has an average rating of Hold and a consensus target price of $23.00.

EchoStar Trading Down 0.2 %

NASDAQ SATS opened at $14.17 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $3.85 billion, a PE ratio of -2.04 and a beta of 0.69. EchoStar has a 1-year low of $9.53 and a 1-year high of $24.80. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $13.57 and a 200-day moving average of $13.49. The company has a current ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last announced 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. EchoStar had a positive return on equity of 5.24% and a negative net margin of 36.33%. The firm had revenue of $4.16 billion during the quarter. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.59 EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 732.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that EchoStar will post -1.28 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director James Defranco acquired 110,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 8th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $13.48 per share, for a total transaction of $1,482,800.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 306,951 shares in the company, valued at $4,137,699.48. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through 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 bought and sold shares of the business. US Bancorp DE grew its stake in shares of EchoStar by 126.6% in the 2nd quarter. US Bancorp DE now owns 1,448 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $25,000 after buying an additional 809 shares during the last quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. bought a new stake in EchoStar in the first quarter worth $34,000. Quarry LP purchased a new stake in shares of EchoStar in the fourth quarter worth $41,000. Quest Partners LLC bought a new position in shares of EchoStar during the fourth quarter valued at $42,000. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. raised its position in shares of EchoStar by 95.0% in the 3rd quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 2,827 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $47,000 after purchasing an additional 1,377 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other 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.