EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) Shares Bought by Legal & General Group Plc

Legal & General Group Plc boosted its position in shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) by 2.6% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 325,573 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 8,340 shares during the period. Legal & General Group Plc’s holdings in EchoStar were worth $7,456,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors also recently modified their holdings of the business. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC increased its stake in shares of EchoStar by 251.3% in the fourth quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,609 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $37,000 after buying an additional 1,151 shares during the last quarter. KBC Group NV boosted its stake in EchoStar by 65.1% in the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 6,684 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $153,000 after acquiring an additional 2,635 shares during the period. Xponance Inc. grew its stake in EchoStar by 8.7% during the 4th quarter. Xponance Inc. now owns 8,773 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $201,000 after buying an additional 701 shares during the last quarter. LPL Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of EchoStar during the fourth quarter worth about $204,000. Finally, Cibc World Markets Corp acquired a new stake in shares of EchoStar in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $261,000. 33.62% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, UBS Group raised their price target on EchoStar from $15.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $23.75.

EchoStar Stock Down 1.6 %

NASDAQ SATS opened at $21.75 on Friday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 0.67 and a quick ratio of 0.61. The company has a market capitalization of $6.23 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.37 and a beta of 0.72. EchoStar Co. has a 12 month low of $13.52 and a 12 month high of $32.48. The company’s 50 day simple moving average is $26.28 and its 200 day simple moving average is $25.31.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 27th. The communications equipment provider reported $1.24 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping 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 firm had revenue of $3.97 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.93 billion. Equities research analysts expect that EchoStar Co. will post -1.99 earnings per share 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.