EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) Shares Gap Down to $24.82

EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) shares gapped down prior to trading on Tuesday . The stock had previously closed at $24.82, but opened at $24.16. EchoStar shares last traded at $23.25, with a volume of 144,613 shares traded.

Analyst Ratings Changes

SATS has been the subject of a number of research analyst reports. Morgan Stanley boosted their target price on shares of EchoStar from $14.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Friday, September 13th. Raymond James downgraded EchoStar from a “strong-buy” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research note on Tuesday. StockNews.com raised EchoStar to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. TD Cowen reduced their price objective on EchoStar from $38.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. restated an “underweight” rating and issued a $12.00 price objective on shares of EchoStar in a research note on Monday, August 12th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $23.00.

EchoStar Stock Performance

The stock has a market cap of $6.45 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.07 and a beta of 0.70. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $20.85 and a 200 day simple moving average of $18.13. 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 quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 9th. The communications equipment provider reported ($0.76) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.37) by ($0.39). The business had revenue of $3.95 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.98 billion. EchoStar had a positive return on equity of 0.18% and a negative net margin of 18.65%. EchoStar’s revenue was down 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted $0.39 earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts expect that EchoStar Co. will post -1.81 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On EchoStar

Institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position 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 buying an additional 9,661,167 shares during the period. Pennant Select LLC bought a new position in shares of EchoStar during the fourth quarter valued at $36,892,000. Pennant Investors LP bought a new position in shares of EchoStar during the fourth quarter valued at $35,679,000. Darsana Capital Partners LP acquired a new stake in shares of EchoStar in the 2nd quarter valued at $36,908,000. Finally, Monarch Alternative Capital LP bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar in the 1st quarter worth about $21,375,000. 33.62% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.