EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) Receives Consensus Rating of “Hold” from Analysts

EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) has been assigned a consensus rating of “Hold” from the six analysts that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have assigned a hold recommendation, one has issued a buy recommendation and one has given a strong buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokers that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $23.00.

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on SATS. 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. TD Cowen dropped their price target on EchoStar from $38.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 12th. UBS Group upped their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. Morgan Stanley increased their price target 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. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded EchoStar to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On EchoStar

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Russell Investments Group Ltd. raised its holdings in EchoStar by 25,776.4% in the 4th quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 18,631 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $309,000 after acquiring an additional 18,559 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of EchoStar by 53.8% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,095,327 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $18,150,000 after buying an additional 383,030 shares in the last quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets boosted its holdings in EchoStar by 118.4% in the 4th quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 31,595 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $524,000 after buying an additional 17,130 shares during the period. Principal Financial Group Inc. grew its position in shares of EchoStar by 4,541.5% during the fourth quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 639,094 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $10,590,000 after purchasing an additional 625,325 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Janney Montgomery Scott LLC boosted its stake in EchoStar by 16.2% in the 4th quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 29,066 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $482,000 after purchasing an additional 4,049 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

EchoStar Stock Performance

Shares of SATS opened at $25.33 on Friday. EchoStar has a 52-week low of $9.53 and a 52-week high of $27.15. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $20.34 and its 200 day simple moving average is $17.82. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 0.32 and a current ratio of 0.40. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.88 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.29 and a beta of 0.70.

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 analysts’ expectations of $3.98 billion. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $0.39 EPS. EchoStar’s revenue was down 9.3% on a year-over-year basis. Research analysts forecast that EchoStar will post -1.81 EPS for the current fiscal year.

EchoStar Company Profile

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.