EchoStar Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NASDAQ:SATS)

EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) saw unusually large options trading activity on Monday. Investors acquired 28,395 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 1,124% compared to the average daily volume of 2,320 call options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On EchoStar

A number of hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of SATS. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its position in shares of EchoStar by 125.3% during the 2nd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 1,442 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 802 shares during the period. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC grew its position in shares of EchoStar by 694.8% during the 2nd 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 period. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC grew its position in shares of EchoStar by 183.6% during the 1st quarter. Eagle Bay Advisors LLC now owns 2,269 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $32,000 after acquiring an additional 1,469 shares during the period. Quarry LP bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar during the 4th quarter valued at $41,000. Finally, Quest Partners LLC bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar during the 4th quarter valued at $42,000. Institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

EchoStar Trading Down 3.2 %

NASDAQ:SATS opened at $25.33 on Wednesday. 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 has a 12 month low of $9.53 and a 12 month high of $27.15. The company has a market cap of $6.88 billion, a PE ratio of -3.29 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $20.34 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $17.82.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 9th. The communications equipment provider reported ($0.76) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates 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 business had revenue of $3.95 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.98 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.39 EPS. The company’s revenue was down 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts forecast that EchoStar will post -1.81 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

SATS has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. 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 report on Tuesday, July 30th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. restated an “underweight” rating and issued a $12.00 price objective on shares of EchoStar in a report on Monday, August 12th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 13th. Finally, TD Cowen cut their target price on shares of EchoStar from $38.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $23.00.

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.