26,906 Shares in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) Bought by KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS

KLP Kapitalforvaltning AS purchased a new stake in shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm purchased 26,906 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $616,000.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Citigroup Inc. grew its stake in shares of EchoStar by 32.7% during the third quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 164,534 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $4,084,000 after buying an additional 40,533 shares during the last quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP purchased a new position in EchoStar during the third quarter valued at approximately $383,000. Captrust Financial Advisors increased its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 21,589 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $536,000 after acquiring an additional 772 shares during the period. Verition Fund Management LLC grew its stake in EchoStar by 69.5% in the third quarter. Verition Fund Management LLC now owns 28,254 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $701,000 after purchasing an additional 11,586 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Stonehill Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of EchoStar during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $9,235,000. 33.62% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

EchoStar Trading Up 4.4 %

Shares of NASDAQ SATS opened at $26.29 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11. The stock has a market capitalization of $7.53 billion, a PE ratio of -2.87 and a beta of 0.65. The stock has a fifty day simple moving average of $27.91 and a 200-day simple moving average of $25.66. EchoStar Co. has a twelve month low of $12.66 and a twelve month high of $32.48.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last released its earnings results on Thursday, February 27th. The communications equipment provider reported $1.24 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.63) by $1.87. EchoStar had a negative net margin of 15.51% and a negative return on equity of 0.64%. The firm had revenue of $3.97 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.93 billion. On average, equities analysts forecast that EchoStar Co. will post -1.99 earnings per share for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have issued reports on SATS. Morgan Stanley began coverage on shares of EchoStar in a report on Monday, December 16th. They issued an “equal weight” rating and a $25.00 price target for the company. UBS Group lifted their price target on EchoStar from $15.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $23.75.

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.