EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) Shares Gap Down to $17.35

EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)’s share price gapped down before the market opened on Wednesday . The stock had previously closed at $17.35, but opened at $15.28. EchoStar shares last traded at $15.27, with a volume of 1,045,246 shares.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the company. TD Cowen lowered their price objective on EchoStar from $39.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 4th. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $11.00 to $14.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 5th. StockNews.com initiated coverage on shares of EchoStar in a research report on Saturday, April 13th. They set a “sell” rating for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. began coverage on shares of EchoStar in a report on Wednesday, January 17th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $18.00 price target on the stock. 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. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, EchoStar has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $23.00.

EchoStar Stock Down 10.4 %

The firm’s 50-day moving average price is $14.41 and its 200-day moving average price is $13.61. 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 company has a market cap of $4.22 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.17 and a beta of 0.62.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last announced its earnings results 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 positive return on equity of 5.24% and a negative net margin of 36.33%. The business’s quarterly 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 earnings per share. Sell-side analysts forecast that EchoStar Co. will post -1.28 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity

In other EchoStar news, Director James Defranco bought 70,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 6th. The stock was bought at an average cost of $13.14 per share, for a total transaction of $919,800.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 176,951 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,325,136.14. The acquisition was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Insiders own 55.90% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On EchoStar

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in SATS. OMERS ADMINISTRATION Corp acquired a new stake in EchoStar in the third quarter valued at $2,047,000. Versor Investments LP bought a new position in shares of EchoStar during the third quarter worth about $1,849,000. American Century Companies Inc. grew its stake in EchoStar by 9.1% in the third quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 474,254 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $7,944,000 after purchasing an additional 39,575 shares in the last quarter. New York Life Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in EchoStar by 443.1% in the third quarter. New York Life Investment Management LLC now owns 122,387 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $2,050,000 after buying an additional 99,854 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Vanguard Group Inc. increased its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 1.0% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 3,465,583 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $58,049,000 after acquiring an additional 33,451 shares during the last quarter. 33.62% of the stock is currently 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.