EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) Stock Price Up 3.4%

Shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) shot up 3.4% during trading on Wednesday . The stock traded as high as $26.20 and last traded at $26.20. 128,989 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 93% from the average session volume of 1,773,947 shares. The stock had previously closed at $25.33.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several brokerages have recently issued reports on SATS. TD Cowen lowered their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $38.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 12th. StockNews.com upgraded EchoStar to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on EchoStar from $14.00 to $20.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, September 13th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reiterated an “underweight” rating and issued a $12.00 price objective on shares of EchoStar in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Finally, UBS Group boosted their price objective on EchoStar from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, EchoStar has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $23.00.

EchoStar Price Performance

The stock has a market cap of $6.99 billion, a P/E ratio of -3.27 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $20.34 and a 200 day simple moving average of $17.82. The company has a current ratio of 0.40, a quick ratio of 0.32 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last released its earnings results on Friday, August 9th. The communications equipment provider reported ($0.76) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.37) by ($0.39). EchoStar had a negative net margin of 18.65% and a positive return on equity of 0.18%. The firm had revenue of $3.95 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.98 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $0.39 EPS. The company’s revenue was down 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. Sell-side analysts forecast that EchoStar Co. will post -1.81 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On EchoStar

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in SATS. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of EchoStar by 238.7% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,707,909 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $195,338,000 after purchasing an additional 9,661,167 shares in the last quarter. Pennant Select LLC bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar during the 4th quarter worth approximately $36,892,000. Pennant Investors LP bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar during the 4th quarter worth approximately $35,679,000. Darsana Capital Partners LP bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar during the 2nd quarter worth approximately $36,908,000. Finally, Monarch Alternative Capital LP bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar during the 1st quarter worth approximately $21,375,000. 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.