Louisiana State Employees Retirement System Cuts Stock Holdings in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)

Louisiana State Employees Retirement System reduced its stake in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) by 4.0% during the third quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 58,300 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after selling 2,400 shares during the quarter. Louisiana State Employees Retirement System’s holdings in EchoStar were worth $1,447,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the company. GAMMA Investing LLC increased its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 125.3% in the 2nd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,442 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 802 shares during the last quarter. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC increased its stake in EchoStar by 694.8% in the second quarter. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC now owns 1,677 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $30,000 after acquiring an additional 1,466 shares during the last quarter. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC raised its position in EchoStar by 183.6% during the first quarter. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC now owns 2,269 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after purchasing an additional 1,469 shares in the last quarter. Central Pacific Bank Trust Division bought a new stake in EchoStar during the first quarter worth about $67,000. Finally, Nisa Investment Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 122.9% in the 2nd quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 4,199 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $75,000 after purchasing an additional 2,315 shares in the last quarter. 33.62% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms recently weighed in on SATS. Raymond James downgraded EchoStar from a “strong-buy” rating to a “market perform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $14.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, September 13th. StockNews.com upgraded shares of EchoStar to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. UBS Group boosted their price target on shares of EchoStar from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 13th. Finally, TD Cowen decreased their price objective on EchoStar from $38.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, August 12th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $24.20.

EchoStar Trading Down 0.5 %

NASDAQ:SATS opened at $25.06 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.81 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.91 and a beta of 0.71. EchoStar Co. has a 52 week low of $9.53 and a 52 week high of $30.08. The company has a quick ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 0.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00. The company has a fifty day moving average of $23.60 and a 200 day moving average of $19.84.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last issued its quarterly earnings data 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 for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.98 billion. During the same period last year, the company posted $0.39 earnings per share. The business’s revenue was down 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts predict that EchoStar Co. will post -1.73 earnings per share for the current year.

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.