EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) Stock Price Down 2.7% – Time to Sell?

EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) was down 2.7% during trading on Friday . The stock traded as low as $24.77 and last traded at $24.80. Approximately 544,407 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, a decline of 70% from the average daily volume of 1,818,463 shares. The stock had previously closed at $25.48.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently issued reports on SATS shares. StockNews.com raised shares of EchoStar to a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 13th. Raymond James cut shares of EchoStar from a “strong-buy” rating to a “market perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 1st. Morgan Stanley boosted their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $14.00 to $20.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Friday, September 13th. Finally, TD Cowen cut their target price on shares of EchoStar from $38.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, August 12th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have issued a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $23.00.

EchoStar Trading Down 3.4 %

The firm has a market capitalization of $6.69 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.87 and a beta of 0.71. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $21.60 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $18.68. 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 (NASDAQ:SATS) last posted its quarterly earnings results 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). EchoStar had a positive return on equity of 0.18% and a negative net margin of 18.65%. The firm had revenue of $3.95 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.98 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned $0.39 earnings per share. The business’s revenue for the quarter was down 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities research analysts expect that EchoStar Co. will post -1.73 EPS for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On EchoStar

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of SATS. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its position in shares of EchoStar by 238.7% during the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,707,909 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $195,338,000 after acquiring an additional 9,661,167 shares during the last quarter. Darsana Capital Partners LP purchased a new stake in EchoStar during the second quarter valued at $36,908,000. Monarch Alternative Capital LP purchased a new stake in EchoStar during the first quarter valued at $21,375,000. American Century Companies Inc. raised its stake in EchoStar by 51.5% during the second quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 2,243,761 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $39,961,000 after purchasing an additional 762,462 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Apollo Management Holdings L.P. purchased a new stake in EchoStar during the first quarter valued at $10,507,000. Institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

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.