EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) Issues Earnings Results, Misses Expectations By $0.23 EPS

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) released its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday. The communications equipment provider reported ($0.40) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.17) by ($0.23), Briefing.com reports. The business had revenue of $4.01 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $4.07 billion. EchoStar had a negative net margin of 36.33% and a positive return on equity of 5.24%. EchoStar’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business posted $0.38 earnings per share.

EchoStar Stock Up 0.1 %

Shares of NASDAQ:SATS traded up $0.01 during trading hours on Thursday, reaching $15.46. The stock had a trading volume of 1,699,866 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,301,278. EchoStar has a 1 year low of $9.53 and a 1 year high of $24.80. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $14.46 and its 200-day moving average is $13.62. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99, a quick ratio of 0.53 and a current ratio of 0.61. The stock has a market capitalization of $4.20 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.21 and a beta of 0.62.

Insider Buying and Selling at EchoStar

In related news, Director James Defranco bought 70,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, March 6th. The shares were purchased at an average cost of $13.14 per share, with a total value of $919,800.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 176,951 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,325,136.14. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Insiders own 55.90% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages have weighed in on SATS. StockNews.com began coverage on shares of EchoStar in a research report on Saturday, April 13th. They issued a “sell” rating for the company. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of EchoStar from $11.00 to $14.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 5th. TD Cowen decreased their target price on shares of EchoStar from $39.00 to $38.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, March 4th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. started coverage on shares of EchoStar in a report on Wednesday, January 17th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $18.00 target price on the stock. Finally, Morgan Stanley decreased their target price on shares of EchoStar from $14.25 to $14.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Wednesday, April 3rd. One research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating, one has assigned a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $23.00.

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.