EchoStar Corporation $SATS Position Boosted by Securian Asset Management Inc.

Securian Asset Management Inc. raised its holdings in shares of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ:SATS) by 11.4% during the 2nd quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 10,219 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,043 shares during the quarter. Securian Asset Management Inc.’s holdings in EchoStar were worth $283,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently bought and sold shares of the company. GAMMA Investing LLC grew its stake in EchoStar by 39.6% during the 1st quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,441 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $88,000 after acquiring an additional 976 shares in the last quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group grew its stake in EchoStar by 70,980.0% during the 1st quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group now owns 3,554 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $91,000 after acquiring an additional 3,549 shares in the last quarter. Picton Mahoney Asset Management purchased a new position in EchoStar during the 1st quarter valued at about $102,000. Strs Ohio bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $128,000. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar in the 1st quarter valued at approximately $166,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Hamid Akhavan sold 233,918 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, September 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.35, for a total transaction of $17,625,721.30. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 376,805 shares in the company, valued at $28,392,256.75. The trade was a 38.30% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Kathleen Q. Abernathy sold 16,754 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, September 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $82.35, for a total value of $1,379,691.90. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 460,740 shares of company stock valued at $35,967,480 in the last three months. 55.90% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently commented on SATS shares. Cowen reissued a “buy” rating on shares of EchoStar in a research note on Wednesday, August 27th. Weiss Ratings reissued a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of EchoStar in a research note on Friday. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft set a $105.00 price target on EchoStar in a research note on Tuesday, September 9th. Citigroup raised EchoStar from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 9th. Finally, TD Cowen boosted their price target on EchoStar from $28.00 to $67.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 27th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, three have assigned a Buy rating, two have issued a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $75.20.

EchoStar Stock Up 1.5%

SATS opened at $74.12 on Friday. The business has a 50 day moving average price of $66.89 and a 200 day moving average price of $39.26. EchoStar Corporation has a twelve month low of $14.90 and a twelve month high of $85.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.28, a quick ratio of 1.15 and a current ratio of 1.22. The firm has a market cap of $21.33 billion, a P/E ratio of -70.59 and a beta of 0.96.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Friday, August 1st. The communications equipment provider reported ($1.06) EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($1.12) by $0.06. EchoStar had a negative return on equity of 1.58% and a negative net margin of 2.04%.The company had revenue of $3.72 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.80 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned ($0.76) earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 5.8% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that EchoStar Corporation will post -1.99 EPS for the current 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.