Investors Buy Large Volume of EchoStar Call Options (NASDAQ:SATS)

by · The Markets Daily

EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ:SATS – Get Free Report) was the target of some unusual options trading on Friday. Stock traders bought 57,835 call options on the company. This is an increase of 252% compared to the average daily volume of 16,418 call options.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities research analysts have recently weighed in on SATS shares. Zacks Research lowered EchoStar from a “strong-buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 11th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft set a $105.00 price target on EchoStar in a research note on Tuesday, September 9th. Morgan Stanley upped their target price on shares of EchoStar from $59.00 to $91.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, September 9th. Citigroup upped their price target on EchoStar from $85.00 to $87.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 11th. Finally, Cowen reaffirmed a “buy” rating on shares of EchoStar in a research report on Wednesday, August 27th. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, four have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $75.60.

Read Our Latest Analysis on EchoStar

EchoStar Price Performance

NASDAQ:SATS traded up $7.46 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $81.96. The stock had a trading volume of 22,478,360 shares, compared to its average volume of 3,664,409. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 3.11, a quick ratio of 0.56 and a current ratio of 0.61. The stock has a market capitalization of $23.59 billion, a PE ratio of -1.83 and a beta of 1.03. EchoStar has a 52 week low of $14.90 and a 52 week high of $88.00. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $73.14 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $49.16.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 6th. The communications equipment provider reported ($44.37) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($1.23) by ($43.14). The firm had revenue of $3.61 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $3.75 billion. EchoStar had a positive return on equity of 0.39% and a negative net margin of 85.36%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 7.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.52) earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that EchoStar will post -1.99 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CEO Hamid Akhavan sold 233,918 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, September 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $75.35, for a total value of $17,625,721.30. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 376,805 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $28,392,256.75. The trade was a 38.30% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, COO John Swieringa sold 22,000 shares of EchoStar stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, November 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $67.34, for a total transaction of $1,481,480.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 283,509 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $19,091,496.06. This represents a 7.20% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 482,740 shares of company stock valued at $37,448,960. 55.90% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. DLD Asset Management LP purchased a new position in EchoStar in the third quarter worth $2,481,700,000. Icahn Carl C purchased a new stake in EchoStar in the third quarter valued at about $332,513,000. Contrarius Group Holdings Ltd acquired a new stake in EchoStar in the third quarter worth about $98,819,000. Darsana Capital Partners LP increased its stake in EchoStar by 15.5% during the 2nd quarter. Darsana Capital Partners LP now owns 8,960,000 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $248,192,000 after purchasing an additional 1,201,672 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Junto Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in EchoStar during the 3rd quarter valued at about $55,199,000. Institutional investors own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

About EchoStar

(Get Free Report)

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.

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