Raymond James Financial Inc. Purchases New Stake in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)

Raymond James Financial Inc. purchased a new position in shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor purchased 132,431 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $3,033,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Proficio Capital Partners LLC purchased a new position in EchoStar in the fourth quarter valued at about $328,000. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in EchoStar by 251.3% during the 4th quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,609 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $37,000 after acquiring an additional 1,151 shares during the period. Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund lifted its stake in EchoStar by 30.8% in 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 in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp boosted its holdings in EchoStar by 15.1% in the 4th 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 purchasing an additional 133,819 shares during the period. Finally, Hussman Strategic Advisors Inc. purchased a new position in shares of EchoStar during the 4th quarter valued at $2,404,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

EchoStar Trading Down 4.5 %

SATS opened at $24.99 on Friday. The firm has a market capitalization of $7.16 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.73 and a beta of 0.65. EchoStar Co. has a one year low of $12.66 and a one year high of $32.48. The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $28.01 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $25.57. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 0.67 and a quick ratio of 0.61.

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

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have recently commented on the company. Morgan Stanley assumed coverage on 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 increased their price objective on EchoStar from $15.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $23.75.

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.