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

StockNews.com began coverage on shares of EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) in a report published on Thursday. The firm issued a buy rating on the communications equipment provider’s stock.

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

EchoStar Stock Up 1.7 %

Shares of SATS opened at $14.25 on Thursday. The company has a market cap of $3.87 billion, a PE ratio of -2.05 and a beta of 0.68. The business has a fifty day moving average of $13.63 and a 200 day moving average of $13.89. EchoStar has a 52-week low of $9.53 and a 52-week high of $24.80. The company has a quick ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, February 29th. The communications equipment provider reported $1.21 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates 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 company had revenue of $4.16 billion during the quarter. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned $0.59 earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 732.2% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, sell-side analysts expect that EchoStar will post -1.11 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

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

Hedge Funds Weigh In On EchoStar

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings 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 worth $67,055,000 after purchasing an additional 581,159 shares in the last quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its holdings in EchoStar by 14.4% in the fourth quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 213,087 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $3,531,000 after purchasing an additional 26,859 shares in the last quarter. American International Group Inc. raised its holdings in EchoStar by 255.3% in the fourth quarter. American International Group Inc. now owns 60,524 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $1,003,000 after purchasing an additional 43,489 shares in the last quarter. Quarry LP acquired a new position in shares of EchoStar during the fourth quarter valued at about $41,000. Finally, Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD increased its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 147.1% during the fourth quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 38,097 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $632,000 after acquiring an additional 22,678 shares in the last quarter. 33.62% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

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.