Securian Asset Management Inc. Invests $235,000 in EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ:SATS)

Securian Asset Management Inc. acquired a new position in shares of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ:SATS - Free Report) in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund acquired 9,176 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock, valued at approximately $235,000.

Other institutional investors also recently bought and sold shares of the company. Proficio Capital Partners LLC acquired a new position in shares of EchoStar during the fourth quarter worth $328,000. Raymond James Financial Inc. acquired a new position in shares of EchoStar during the fourth quarter worth $3,033,000. Swiss National Bank lifted its position in shares of EchoStar by 0.8% during the fourth quarter. Swiss National Bank now owns 248,425 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock worth $5,689,000 after purchasing an additional 2,000 shares in the last quarter. Cibc World Markets Corp acquired a new position in shares of EchoStar during the fourth quarter worth $261,000. Finally, Intech Investment Management LLC lifted its position in shares of EchoStar by 196.4% during the fourth quarter. Intech Investment Management LLC now owns 77,704 shares of the communications equipment provider's stock worth $1,779,000 after purchasing an additional 51,488 shares in the last quarter. 33.62% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Separately, Citigroup upped their price target on shares of EchoStar from $27.00 to $28.50 and gave the company a "neutral" rating in a report on Monday, June 23rd. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company currently has an average rating of "Hold" and an average price target of $24.70.

EchoStar Stock Down 1.1%

SATS traded down $0.32 during trading on Friday, hitting $28.61. The company had a trading volume of 2,078,358 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,347,047. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.26, a current ratio of 1.26 and a quick ratio of 1.19. EchoStar Corporation has a 1-year low of $14.79 and a 1-year high of $33.04. The business has a 50-day moving average of $23.80 and a 200-day moving average of $25.04. The company has a market cap of $8.22 billion, a PE ratio of -38.15 and a beta of 0.90.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Friday, May 9th. The communications equipment provider reported ($0.71) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.90) by $0.19. The firm had revenue of $3.87 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.87 billion. EchoStar had a negative net margin of 1.37% and a negative return on equity of 1.08%. The firm's revenue for the quarter was down 3.6% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.40) earnings per share. As a group, analysts forecast that EchoStar Corporation will post -1.99 earnings per share for the current year.

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.