Teacher Retirement System of Texas Invests $533,000 in AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS)

Teacher Retirement System of Texas purchased a new position in AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS - Free Report) during the first quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The institutional investor purchased 23,425 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $533,000.

A number of other hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in ASTS. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its holdings in shares of AST SpaceMobile by 49.4% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 14,987,351 shares of the company's stock worth $316,233,000 after purchasing an additional 4,955,941 shares during the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. purchased a new stake in AST SpaceMobile in the fourth quarter worth about $59,523,000. Key Colony Management LLC lifted its stake in AST SpaceMobile by 204.1% in the first quarter. Key Colony Management LLC now owns 596,000 shares of the company's stock worth $13,553,000 after acquiring an additional 400,000 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in AST SpaceMobile by 7.0% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,496,825 shares of the company's stock worth $73,801,000 after acquiring an additional 229,759 shares during the period. Finally, Twinbeech Capital LP purchased a new stake in AST SpaceMobile in the fourth quarter worth about $4,684,000. 60.95% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms recently weighed in on ASTS. B. Riley reaffirmed a "buy" rating and issued a $44.00 price objective (up from $36.00) on shares of AST SpaceMobile in a research note on Monday, June 16th. Roth Capital began coverage on shares of AST SpaceMobile in a research note on Thursday, April 10th. They issued a "buy" rating and a $42.00 price objective for the company. Bank of America began coverage on shares of AST SpaceMobile in a research note on Wednesday, June 25th. They issued a "neutral" rating and a $55.00 price objective for the company. Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of AST SpaceMobile in a research report on Monday, May 5th. They set a "market perform" rating for the company. Finally, Scotiabank reissued a "sector perform" rating and set a $45.40 price target on shares of AST SpaceMobile in a research report on Monday, June 23rd. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, AST SpaceMobile has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average target price of $45.34.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CTO Huiwen Yao sold 55,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.82, for a total value of $1,475,100.00. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO Shanti B. Gupta sold 15,000 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $36.08, for a total transaction of $541,200.00. Following the sale, the chief operating officer directly owned 315,667 shares in the company, valued at $11,389,265.36. The trade was a 4.54% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 184,250 shares of company stock worth $6,146,750. 34.15% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

AST SpaceMobile Stock Performance

Shares of AST SpaceMobile stock traded up $4.82 during midday trading on Thursday, hitting $57.45. The company had a trading volume of 15,751,658 shares, compared to its average volume of 12,895,646. The stock has a market cap of $18.18 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -28.87 and a beta of 2.27. The company has a quick ratio of 10.62, a current ratio of 10.62 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.60. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $36.46 and a 200 day simple moving average of $28.71. AST SpaceMobile, Inc. has a 12-month low of $12.24 and a 12-month high of $57.98.

AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS - Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Monday, May 12th. The company reported ($0.20) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.17) by ($0.03). AST SpaceMobile had a negative return on equity of 23.56% and a negative net margin of 7,033.22%. The business had revenue of $0.72 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $3.85 million. As a group, analysts predict that AST SpaceMobile, Inc. will post -0.4 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

AST SpaceMobile Company Profile

AST SpaceMobile, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, develops and provides access to a space-based cellular broadband network for smartphones in the United States. Its SpaceMobile service provides cellular broadband services to end-users who are out of terrestrial cellular coverage. The company was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Midland, Texas.