Raymond James & Associates Sells 31,566 Shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)

Raymond James & Associates lowered its holdings in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) by 24.1% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 99,367 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after selling 31,566 shares during the quarter. Raymond James & Associates owned approximately 0.12% of EchoStar worth $1,647,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other large investors have also modified their holdings of SATS. Beryl Capital Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar in the 3rd quarter valued at about $36,090,000. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd bought a new position in shares of EchoStar during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $10,155,000. BlackRock Inc. lifted its position in EchoStar by 13.6% during the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 4,444,060 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $77,060,000 after acquiring an additional 531,537 shares during the last quarter. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in EchoStar during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $5,660,000. Finally, Millennium Management LLC lifted its position in EchoStar by 38.5% during the fourth quarter. Millennium Management LLC now owns 1,142,117 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $19,051,000 after acquiring an additional 317,417 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. StockNews.com assumed coverage on shares of EchoStar in a research report on Saturday, April 13th. They set a “sell” rating for the company. Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of EchoStar from $14.25 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, April 3rd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. assumed coverage on shares of EchoStar in a research report on Wednesday, January 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $18.00 target price for the company. TD Cowen decreased their target price on shares of EchoStar from $39.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 4th. Finally, UBS Group raised their price target on shares of EchoStar from $11.00 to $14.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 5th. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $23.00.

EchoStar Trading Up 3.9 %

NASDAQ SATS opened at $14.56 on Friday. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $13.62 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $13.48. The stock has a market cap of $3.95 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.09 and a beta of 0.69. EchoStar Co. has a 12-month low of $9.53 and a 12-month high of $24.80. The company has a current ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 29th. The communications equipment provider reported $1.21 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.02 by $1.19. The firm had revenue of $4.16 billion for the quarter. EchoStar had a negative net margin of 36.33% and a positive return on equity of 5.24%. The firm’s revenue was up 732.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.59 EPS. On average, analysts forecast that EchoStar Co. will post -1.28 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Transactions at EchoStar

In other EchoStar news, Director James Defranco acquired 110,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 8th. The shares were purchased at an average price of $13.48 per share, for a total transaction of $1,482,800.00. Following the completion of the purchase, the director now directly owns 306,951 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,137,699.48. The acquisition was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Company insiders own 55.90% of the company’s stock.

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.