Dodge & Cox Sells 51,350 Shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)

Dodge & Cox cut its holdings in shares of EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS - Free Report) by 0.4% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor owned 13,416,003 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock after selling 51,350 shares during the quarter. Dodge & Cox owned approximately 4.94% of EchoStar worth $307,226,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.

A number of other large investors also recently modified their holdings of SATS. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its holdings in EchoStar by 0.6% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 13,737,733 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock worth $314,594,000 after acquiring an additional 88,488 shares in the last quarter. American Century Companies Inc. raised its stake in shares of EchoStar by 1.0% during the 4th quarter. American Century Companies Inc. now owns 2,992,060 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock worth $68,518,000 after purchasing an additional 28,779 shares in the last quarter. Invesco Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 26.0% in the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 2,301,367 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock valued at $52,701,000 after buying an additional 474,313 shares during the last quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its stake in shares of EchoStar by 15.1% in the fourth 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 buying an additional 133,819 shares in the last quarter. Finally, FIL Ltd increased its holdings in EchoStar by 139.9% during the fourth quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 601,250 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock worth $13,769,000 after buying an additional 350,650 shares during the last quarter. 33.62% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

EchoStar Stock Performance

SATS traded down $0.35 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $21.75. The company's stock had a trading volume of 1,234,897 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,736,973. The company's 50-day moving average is $26.28 and its 200-day moving average is $25.32. EchoStar Co. has a 52 week low of $14.40 and a 52 week high of $32.48. The firm has a market cap of $6.23 billion, a PE ratio of -2.37 and a beta of 0.72. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a current ratio of 0.67.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS - Get Free Report) last issued 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. The company had revenue of $3.97 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.93 billion. EchoStar had a negative net margin of 15.51% and a negative return on equity of 0.64%. On average, equities analysts forecast that EchoStar Co. will post -1.99 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

EchoStar 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.