Paul Gaske Sells 45,000 Shares of EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) Stock

EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ:SATS) COO Paul Gaske sold 45,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, September 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $80.25, for a total transaction of $3,611,250.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 1,593 shares in the company, valued at approximately $127,838.25. This represents a 96.58% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link.

EchoStar Trading Down 3.6%

Shares of EchoStar stock opened at $77.04 on Friday. EchoStar Corporation has a 52-week low of $14.90 and a 52-week high of $85.37. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $39.05 and a 200-day moving average of $28.97. 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 stock has a market cap of $22.17 billion, a PE ratio of -73.37 and a beta of 0.99.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last released its quarterly earnings data on Friday, August 1st. The communications equipment provider reported ($1.06) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($1.12) by $0.06. The company had revenue of $3.72 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.80 billion. EchoStar had a negative return on equity of 1.58% and a negative net margin of 2.04%.The firm’s revenue was down 5.8% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted ($0.76) earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts forecast that EchoStar Corporation will post -1.99 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of analysts recently issued reports on the stock. Cowen restated a “buy” rating on shares of EchoStar in a report on Wednesday, August 27th. Morgan Stanley boosted 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. Citigroup restated a “neutral” rating on shares of EchoStar in a research note on Friday, August 29th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft set a $105.00 target price on EchoStar in a report on Tuesday. Finally, TD Cowen lifted their target price on EchoStar from $28.00 to $67.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 27th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and four have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, EchoStar has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $63.90.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On EchoStar

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in SATS. Farther Finance Advisors LLC raised its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 8,125.0% during the first quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 987 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 975 shares in the last quarter. State of Wyoming bought a new position in EchoStar in the fourth quarter worth $47,000. Fifth Third Bancorp raised its holdings in EchoStar by 44.5% in the first quarter. Fifth Third Bancorp now owns 1,841 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $47,000 after purchasing an additional 567 shares in the last quarter. Lazard Asset Management LLC bought a new position in EchoStar in the second quarter worth $73,000. Finally, GAMMA Investing LLC raised its holdings in EchoStar by 39.6% in the first quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 3,441 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $88,000 after purchasing an additional 976 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

EchoStar Company 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.