Bank of Montreal Can Raises Stock Position in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)

Bank of Montreal Can grew its position in shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS - Free Report) by 119.2% in the 4th quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 27,491 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock after purchasing an additional 14,947 shares during the period. Bank of Montreal Can's holdings in EchoStar were worth $630,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

Other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its stake in EchoStar by 0.6% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,737,733 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock worth $314,594,000 after buying an additional 88,488 shares in the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. boosted its stake in shares of EchoStar by 1.0% in the 4th quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 2,992,060 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $68,518,000 after purchasing an additional 28,779 shares in the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 15.1% during the 4th quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 1,019,809 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $23,354,000 after purchasing an additional 133,819 shares during the last quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. raised its position in EchoStar by 3.0% in the 4th quarter. Principal Financial Group Inc. now owns 585,990 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock worth $13,419,000 after purchasing an additional 16,999 shares during the period. Finally, Empowered Funds LLC lifted its stake in EchoStar by 6.1% in the fourth quarter. Empowered Funds LLC now owns 344,188 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock worth $7,882,000 after purchasing an additional 19,772 shares during the last quarter. 33.62% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Separately, UBS Group raised their price objective on EchoStar from $15.00 to $28.00 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a research note on Monday, January 13th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have given a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $23.75.

EchoStar Trading Down 0.7 %

SATS traded down $0.17 during trading on Friday, hitting $22.35. 158,352 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 1,734,239. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.40 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.44 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 company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11, a current ratio of 0.67 and a quick ratio of 0.61. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $25.69 and a 200 day moving average of $25.26.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS - Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 27th. The communications equipment provider reported $1.24 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.63) by $1.87. EchoStar had a negative net margin of 15.51% and a negative return on equity of 0.64%. The company had revenue of $3.97 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.93 billion. Equities research analysts anticipate 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.