AST SpaceMobile, Inc. $ASTS Shares Purchased by Vanguard Group Inc.

Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in shares of AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS) by 7.9% in the 4th quarter, HoldingsChannel.com reports. The firm owned 21,488,180 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 1,568,292 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. owned 0.06% of AST SpaceMobile worth $1,560,687,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Several other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. increased its position in AST SpaceMobile by 48.0% in the 3rd quarter. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. now owns 532,960 shares of the company’s stock worth $26,158,000 after buying an additional 172,759 shares during the period. Yarbrough Capital LLC increased its position in AST SpaceMobile by 28.0% in the 3rd quarter. Yarbrough Capital LLC now owns 99,372 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,877,000 after buying an additional 21,739 shares during the period. Mutual Advisors LLC bought a new position in AST SpaceMobile in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $1,882,000. M&T Bank Corp increased its position in AST SpaceMobile by 1,062.9% in the 4th quarter. M&T Bank Corp now owns 77,994 shares of the company’s stock worth $5,665,000 after buying an additional 71,287 shares during the period. Finally, VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEMS ET Al increased its position in AST SpaceMobile by 28.5% in the 3rd quarter. VIRGINIA RETIREMENT SYSTEMS ET Al now owns 27,500 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,350,000 after buying an additional 6,100 shares during the period. 60.95% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other AST SpaceMobile news, CTO Huiwen Yao sold 40,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, March 23rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $88.88, for a total value of $3,555,200.00. Following the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 4,750 shares in the company, valued at $422,180. This represents a 89.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, major shareholder Hiroshi Mikitani sold 1,350,000 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Wednesday, April 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $86.22, for a total value of $116,397,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 27,980,155 shares in the company, valued at $2,412,448,964.10. This trade represents a 4.60% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 3,080,000 shares of company stock worth $274,452,000 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 30.90% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

ASTS has been the topic of several recent analyst reports. Wall Street Zen downgraded AST SpaceMobile from a “sell” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Wednesday, April 15th. Scotiabank cut AST SpaceMobile from a “sector perform” rating to a “sector underperform” rating and set a $45.60 price objective on the stock. in a research report on Wednesday, January 7th. Weiss Ratings restated a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of AST SpaceMobile in a research report on Friday, March 27th. New Street Research set a $115.00 price objective on AST SpaceMobile in a research report on Monday, April 20th. Finally, Zacks Research upgraded AST SpaceMobile from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 4th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, AST SpaceMobile presently has an average rating of “Reduce” and an average target price of $82.51.

AST SpaceMobile Stock Performance

ASTS opened at $73.90 on Friday. The stock has a market cap of $28.23 billion, a PE ratio of -55.98 and a beta of 2.81. The company has a current ratio of 16.35, a quick ratio of 16.27 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.92. AST SpaceMobile, Inc. has a 1 year low of $22.47 and a 1 year high of $129.89. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $86.85 and its 200-day simple moving average is $83.49.

AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS) last released its quarterly earnings data on Monday, March 2nd. The company reported ($0.26) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.18) by ($0.08). The firm had revenue of $54.31 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $39.53 million. AST SpaceMobile had a negative net margin of 482.16% and a negative return on equity of 23.02%. The business’s revenue was up 2731.3% compared to the same quarter last year. Sell-side analysts forecast that AST SpaceMobile, Inc. will post -0.99 EPS for the current year.

AST SpaceMobile Company Profile

AST SpaceMobile is a U.S.-based aerospace company developing a space-based cellular broadband network designed to connect standard mobile phones and other devices directly to satellites. The company’s core proposition is “space-to-cell” service: operating a constellation of low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellites equipped with large, high-power phased-array antennas to provide wide-area mobile broadband without requiring users to buy specialized terminals or handset modifications.

AST SpaceMobile designs, builds and operates satellite payloads and supporting ground infrastructure.