EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) PT Raised to $20.00 at Morgan Stanley

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) had its target price boosted by equities research analysts at Morgan Stanley from $14.00 to $20.00 in a research report issued to clients and investors on Friday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has an “equal weight” rating on the communications equipment provider’s stock. Morgan Stanley’s price target indicates a potential downside of 17.59% from the stock’s previous close.

A number of other research analysts also recently issued reports on SATS. TD Cowen reduced their price target on shares of EchoStar from $38.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, August 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. restated an “underweight” rating and issued a $12.00 target price on shares of EchoStar in a research note on Monday, August 12th. UBS Group increased their price target on EchoStar from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 13th. Finally, StockNews.com upgraded EchoStar to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 30th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $23.00.

EchoStar Stock Up 9.0 %

NASDAQ:SATS opened at $24.27 on Friday. The stock has a 50-day simple moving average of $19.37 and a 200 day simple moving average of $17.15. EchoStar has a one year low of $9.53 and a one year high of $24.40. The company has a market capitalization of $6.59 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -3.15 and a beta of 0.70. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00, a quick ratio of 0.32 and a current ratio of 0.40.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last issued its earnings results on Friday, August 9th. The communications equipment provider reported ($0.76) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate 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 analyst estimates of $3.98 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $0.39 EPS. EchoStar’s revenue was down 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts predict that EchoStar will post -1.64 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On EchoStar

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Texas Permanent School Fund Corp raised its stake in EchoStar by 263.3% during the 1st quarter. Texas Permanent School Fund Corp now owns 105,421 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $1,502,000 after acquiring an additional 76,407 shares in the last quarter. UniSuper Management Pty Ltd acquired a new stake in EchoStar in the first quarter worth about $398,000. P Schoenfeld Asset Management LP bought a new position in EchoStar in the 4th quarter valued at about $3,782,000. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its stake in EchoStar by 238.7% during the 1st quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,707,909 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $195,338,000 after buying an additional 9,661,167 shares during the period. Finally, Tidal Investments LLC bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar during the 1st quarter worth about $511,000. 33.62% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.