EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) Given Consensus Recommendation of "Hold" by Analysts

EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS - Get Free Report) has been assigned an average rating of "Hold" from the five ratings firms that are covering the firm, Marketbeat reports. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell recommendation, three have issued a hold recommendation and one has issued a buy recommendation on the company. The average twelve-month price objective among analysts that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $21.00.

SATS has been the topic of several research analyst reports. UBS Group boosted their price target on EchoStar from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 13th. StockNews.com upgraded EchoStar to a "sell" rating in a research report on Saturday. Raymond James lowered shares of EchoStar from a "strong-buy" rating to a "market perform" rating in a research report on Tuesday, October 1st. TD Cowen dropped their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $38.00 to $37.00 and set a "buy" rating on the stock in a report on Monday, August 12th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reissued an "underweight" rating and set a $12.00 target price on shares of EchoStar in a report on Monday, August 12th.

EchoStar Stock Performance

NASDAQ:SATS traded down $0.26 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $25.81. 1,258,856 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 1,769,666. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00, a current ratio of 0.40 and a quick ratio of 0.32. EchoStar has a 52-week low of $9.53 and a 52-week high of $30.08. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.01 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.00 and a beta of 0.70. The company's 50 day moving average price is $24.48 and its 200-day moving average price is $20.38.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 9th. The communications equipment provider reported ($0.76) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.37) by ($0.39). The company had revenue of $3.95 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $3.98 billion. EchoStar had a negative net margin of 18.65% and a positive return on equity of 0.18%. EchoStar's quarterly revenue was down 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the firm earned $0.39 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that EchoStar will post -1.73 earnings per share for the current year.

Institutional Trading of EchoStar

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Texas Permanent School Fund Corp raised its position in shares of EchoStar by 263.3% in the first quarter. Texas Permanent School Fund Corp now owns 105,421 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock worth $1,502,000 after acquiring an additional 76,407 shares during the period. Empowered Funds LLC boosted its position in EchoStar by 8.5% during the first quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 285,519 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock worth $4,069,000 after purchasing an additional 22,461 shares in the last quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. acquired a new stake in EchoStar in the first quarter valued at approximately $300,000. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund acquired a new stake in EchoStar in the first quarter valued at approximately $940,000. Finally, Swiss National Bank increased its position in shares of EchoStar by 247.2% in the first quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 235,025 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $3,349,000 after buying an additional 167,325 shares in the last quarter. 33.62% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.