Ameritas Investment Partners Inc. Has $1.11 Million Stake in EchoStar Corporation $SATS

Ameritas Investment Partners Inc. grew its position in EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ:SATS) by 10.5% in the 2nd quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 39,906 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after buying an additional 3,801 shares during the quarter. Ameritas Investment Partners Inc.’s holdings in EchoStar were worth $1,105,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Brooklyn Investment Group increased its stake in EchoStar by 70,980.0% in the first 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 during the last quarter. Picton Mahoney Asset Management acquired a new stake in shares of EchoStar in the 1st quarter valued at $102,000. Strs Ohio bought a new position in shares of EchoStar in the 1st quarter valued at $128,000. AlphaQuest LLC acquired a new position in shares of EchoStar during the 2nd quarter worth $130,000. Finally, Nisa Investment Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 16.6% during the 2nd quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 5,235 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $145,000 after buying an additional 746 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms recently weighed in on SATS. Morgan Stanley raised their price objective on EchoStar from $59.00 to $91.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 9th. TD Cowen raised their price target on shares of EchoStar from $28.00 to $67.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 27th. Citigroup lifted their price target on shares of EchoStar from $85.00 to $87.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 11th. Zacks Research downgraded shares of EchoStar from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 11th. Finally, Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of EchoStar in a research note on Wednesday, August 27th. Three analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $75.60.

EchoStar Stock Down 0.2%

NASDAQ:SATS opened at $70.88 on Friday. EchoStar Corporation has a one year low of $14.90 and a one year high of $85.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.28, a current ratio of 1.22 and a quick ratio of 1.15. The company has a market cap of $20.40 billion, a PE ratio of -67.50 and a beta of 0.94. The firm’s 50 day simple moving average is $73.07 and its 200 day simple moving average is $47.36.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The communications equipment provider reported ($44.37) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($1.23) by ($43.14). The business had revenue of $3.61 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.75 billion. EchoStar had a negative net margin of 2.04% and a negative return on equity of 1.58%. EchoStar’s revenue was down 7.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted ($0.52) EPS. On average, research analysts anticipate that EchoStar Corporation will post -1.99 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other EchoStar news, COO John Swieringa sold 154,835 shares of EchoStar stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, September 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $81.20, for a total transaction of $12,572,602.00. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 432 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $35,078.40. The trade was a 99.72% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Hamid Akhavan sold 233,918 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $75.35, for a total value of $17,625,721.30. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 376,805 shares in the company, valued at $28,392,256.75. This trade represents a 38.30% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold 482,740 shares of company stock valued at $37,448,960 in the last quarter. 55.90% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

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.