State of Alaska Department of Revenue Invests $350,000 in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)

State of Alaska Department of Revenue purchased a new position in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) in the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm purchased 21,131 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $350,000.

A number of other large investors have also recently made changes to their positions in SATS. Beryl Capital Management LLC bought a new position in shares of EchoStar in the third quarter worth $36,090,000. Qube Research & Technologies Ltd bought a new position in shares of EchoStar in the third quarter worth $10,155,000. BlackRock Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 13.6% in the second quarter. BlackRock Inc. now owns 4,444,060 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $77,060,000 after acquiring an additional 531,537 shares during the period. Norges Bank bought a new position in shares of EchoStar in the fourth quarter worth $5,660,000. Finally, Millennium Management LLC boosted its stake 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 buying an additional 317,417 shares during the period. 33.62% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

Insider Transactions at EchoStar

In related news, Director James Defranco acquired 110,000 shares of the firm’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 acquisition, the director now owns 306,951 shares in the company, valued at $4,137,699.48. The purchase was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Company insiders own 55.90% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently issued reports on SATS. StockNews.com began coverage on EchoStar in a research note on Saturday. They set a “sell” rating for the company. JPMorgan Chase & Co. began coverage on EchoStar in a research note on Wednesday, January 17th. They set a “neutral” rating and a $18.00 price objective for the company. Morgan Stanley dropped their price objective on EchoStar from $14.25 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, April 3rd. UBS Group lifted their price objective on EchoStar from $11.00 to $14.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 5th. Finally, TD Cowen dropped their price objective on EchoStar from $39.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, March 4th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $23.00.

EchoStar Trading Down 1.7 %

NASDAQ SATS opened at $14.20 on Friday. The company has a market capitalization of $3.86 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.04 and a beta of 0.69. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $13.55 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $13.53. The company has a quick ratio of 0.53, a current ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99. EchoStar Co. has a twelve month low of $9.53 and a twelve month high of $24.80.

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

EchoStar 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.