Public Sector Pension Investment Board Buys 18,357 Shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)

Public Sector Pension Investment Board increased its position in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) by 7.4% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 265,257 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 18,357 shares during the quarter. Public Sector Pension Investment Board owned about 0.10% of EchoStar worth $4,724,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in SATS. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of 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 purchasing an additional 9,661,167 shares during the period. Pennant Select LLC bought a new stake in EchoStar during the fourth quarter valued at about $36,892,000. Pennant Investors LP purchased a new position in shares of EchoStar in the fourth quarter valued at about $35,679,000. Monarch Alternative Capital LP bought a new position in shares of EchoStar in the first quarter worth about $21,375,000. Finally, American Century Companies Inc. grew its position in shares of 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 worth $39,961,000 after purchasing an additional 762,462 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research analysts have weighed in on SATS shares. UBS Group upped their price target on EchoStar from $14.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 13th. Morgan Stanley raised their target price on shares of EchoStar from $14.00 to $20.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Friday, September 13th. TD Cowen decreased their price target on shares of EchoStar from $38.00 to $37.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, August 12th. StockNews.com raised shares of EchoStar to a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, July 30th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed an “underweight” rating and issued a $12.00 target price on shares of EchoStar in a report on Monday, August 12th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating, one has given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, EchoStar has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $23.00.

EchoStar Stock Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:SATS opened at $25.76 on Friday. The firm has a fifty day simple moving average of $20.56 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $17.93. The company has a quick ratio of 0.32, a current ratio of 0.40 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.00. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.99 billion, a P/E ratio of -3.34 and a beta of 0.70. EchoStar Co. has a 52 week low of $9.53 and a 52 week high of $27.15.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 9th. The communications equipment provider reported ($0.76) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.37) by ($0.39). The company had revenue of $3.95 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.98 billion. EchoStar had a positive return on equity of 0.18% and a negative net margin of 18.65%. The company’s revenue was down 9.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.39 earnings per share. On average, analysts expect that EchoStar Co. will post -1.81 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.