EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) Given Average Rating of “Hold” by Brokerages

EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) has received a consensus rating of “Hold” from the five research firms that are covering the firm, Marketbeat.com reports. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have assigned a hold recommendation and one has issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average 1 year price target among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $23.75.

A number of brokerages recently weighed in on SATS. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on shares of EchoStar in a report on Monday, December 16th. They set an “equal weight” rating and a $25.00 price objective for the company. UBS Group lifted their price target on shares of EchoStar from $15.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On EchoStar

Several large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. FIL Ltd raised its stake in EchoStar by 139.9% in the fourth quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 601,250 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $13,769,000 after buying an additional 350,650 shares in the last quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund lifted its stake in shares of EchoStar by 30.8% during the 4th quarter. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund now owns 69,076 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $1,582,000 after purchasing an additional 16,253 shares during the last quarter. Y Intercept Hong Kong Ltd bought a new stake in EchoStar during the third quarter valued at about $1,230,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. bought a new position in EchoStar in the fourth quarter worth about $3,033,000. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp lifted its position in shares of EchoStar by 15.1% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,019,809 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $23,354,000 after buying an additional 133,819 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

EchoStar Trading Up 1.2 %

SATS opened at $22.74 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a current ratio of 0.67. The stock’s 50 day moving average price is $26.84 and its 200-day moving average price is $25.39. EchoStar has a one year low of $13.49 and a one year high of $32.48. The stock has a market cap of $6.51 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.48 and a beta of 0.72.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 27th. The communications equipment provider reported $1.24 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.63) by $1.87. EchoStar had a negative return on equity of 0.64% and a negative net margin of 15.51%. The company had revenue of $3.97 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.93 billion. On average, equities analysts forecast that EchoStar will post -1.99 EPS 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.