EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) Shares Up 3.3%

Shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) rose 3.3% during trading on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $14.36 and last traded at $14.34. Approximately 78,218 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 97% from the average daily volume of 2,446,447 shares. The stock had previously closed at $13.88.

Analyst Ratings Changes

SATS has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. TD Cowen reduced their target price on shares of EchoStar from $39.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 4th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. assumed coverage on shares of EchoStar in a research report on Wednesday, January 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $18.00 price target for the company. Morgan Stanley reduced their price target on shares of EchoStar from $14.25 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 3rd. UBS Group increased their price target 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, StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of EchoStar in a research report on Saturday, April 13th. They set a “sell” rating for the company. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have given a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $23.00.

EchoStar Trading Up 3.9 %

The company has a current ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $13.62 and its 200 day simple moving average is $13.48.

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

Insider Buying and Selling at EchoStar

In other news, Director James Defranco purchased 110,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 8th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $13.48 per share, with a total value of $1,482,800.00. Following the completion of the acquisition, the director now owns 306,951 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,137,699.48. 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 Investors Weigh In On EchoStar

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the company. US Bancorp DE lifted its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 126.6% in the second 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 in the last quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. purchased a new stake in EchoStar in the first quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Quarry LP purchased a new stake in EchoStar in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $41,000. Quest Partners LLC purchased a new stake in EchoStar in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $42,000. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. raised its stake in EchoStar by 95.0% in the third quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 2,827 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $47,000 after purchasing an additional 1,377 shares in the last quarter. 33.62% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.