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

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

Several other hedge funds have also bought and sold shares of the stock. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC raised its position in shares of EchoStar by 251.3% during the 4th quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,609 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $37,000 after buying an additional 1,151 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV raised its position in EchoStar by 65.1% during the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 6,684 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $153,000 after purchasing an additional 2,635 shares in the last quarter. Xponance Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 8.7% in the 4th quarter. Xponance Inc. now owns 8,773 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $201,000 after purchasing an additional 701 shares in the last quarter. LPL Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of EchoStar during the 4th quarter valued at about $204,000. Finally, Cibc World Markets Corp purchased a new position in shares of EchoStar during the 4th quarter valued at about $261,000. 33.62% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Separately, UBS Group upped their target price on EchoStar from $15.00 to $28.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $23.75.

EchoStar Stock Up 0.5 %

SATS opened at $22.68 on Tuesday. The company has a market cap of $6.50 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.48 and a beta of 0.72. EchoStar Co. has a 12 month low of $14.40 and a 12 month high of $32.48. The business’s 50-day moving average price is $25.40 and its 200-day moving average price is $25.21. The company has a current ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11.

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 the consensus estimate 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 firm had revenue of $3.97 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.93 billion. On average, equities analysts expect that EchoStar Co. will post -1.99 EPS for the current year.

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.