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

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

EchoStar Trading Up 0.1 %

SATS traded up $0.01 during mid-day trading on Thursday, hitting $15.46. 1,699,866 shares of the stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 2,301,278. The company has a market cap of $4.20 billion, a PE ratio of -2.21 and a beta of 0.62. The company has a current ratio of 0.61, a quick ratio of 0.53 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.99. The firm’s fifty day moving average is $14.46 and its two-hundred day moving average is $13.62. EchoStar has a 1-year low of $9.53 and a 1-year high of $24.80.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

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

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, Director James Defranco acquired 110,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 8th. The stock was acquired at an average price of $13.48 per share, for a total transaction of $1,482,800.00. Following the purchase, the director now owns 306,951 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,137,699.48. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Insiders own 55.90% of the company’s stock.

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.