Raymond James Financial Inc. Invests $3.03 Million in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)

Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new stake in shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The fund acquired 132,431 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock, valued at approximately $3,033,000.

Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in SATS. Natixis Advisors LLC grew its position in EchoStar by 9.8% during the third quarter. Natixis Advisors LLC now owns 21,790 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $541,000 after buying an additional 1,942 shares during the period. Intech Investment Management LLC bought a new stake in shares of EchoStar during the third quarter valued at approximately $651,000. Citigroup Inc. lifted its position in shares of EchoStar by 32.7% in the third quarter. Citigroup Inc. now owns 164,534 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $4,084,000 after buying an additional 40,533 shares in the last quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP bought a new position in shares of EchoStar during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $383,000. Finally, Captrust Financial Advisors increased its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 3.7% in the 3rd quarter. Captrust Financial Advisors now owns 21,589 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $536,000 after buying an additional 772 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

EchoStar Stock Performance

Shares of SATS opened at $24.99 on Friday. EchoStar Co. has a 12 month low of $12.66 and a 12 month high of $32.48. The company has a current ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11. The firm has a market cap of $7.16 billion, a PE ratio of -2.73 and a beta of 0.65. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $28.01 and a 200-day moving average price of $25.57.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 27th. The communications equipment provider reported $1.24 earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.63) by $1.87. EchoStar had a negative return on equity of 0.64% and a negative net margin of 15.51%. The business had revenue of $3.97 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.93 billion. Equities research analysts predict that EchoStar Co. will post -1.99 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts have recently weighed in on SATS shares. Morgan Stanley assumed coverage on shares of EchoStar in a research note on Monday, December 16th. They issued an “equal weight” rating and a $25.00 target price on the stock. UBS Group lifted their price objective on shares of EchoStar from $15.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Monday, January 13th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has given a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $23.75.

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.