Investors Buy Large Volume of AST SpaceMobile Call Options (NASDAQ:ASTS)

AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS - Get Free Report) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Thursday. Stock traders acquired 145,830 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 81% compared to the typical daily volume of 80,433 call options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have weighed in on ASTS. UBS Group boosted their target price on shares of AST SpaceMobile from $31.00 to $38.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, March 5th. Roth Capital assumed coverage on AST SpaceMobile in a research report on Thursday, April 10th. They issued a "buy" rating and a $42.00 target price on the stock. Scotiabank lowered their price objective on shares of AST SpaceMobile from $47.90 to $45.40 and set a "sector outperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Tuesday, May 13th. Cantor Fitzgerald restated an "overweight" rating and set a $30.00 target price on shares of AST SpaceMobile in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. Finally, Oppenheimer began coverage on shares of AST SpaceMobile in a research note on Monday, May 5th. They set a "market perform" rating on the stock. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $42.40.

Insider Buying and Selling at AST SpaceMobile

In other AST SpaceMobile news, CTO Huiwen Yao sold 55,000 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, May 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $26.82, for a total transaction of $1,475,100.00. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, Director Julio A. Torres sold 20,000 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Monday, March 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $30.73, for a total value of $614,600.00. Following the transaction, the director now owns 52,628 shares of the company's stock, valued at $1,617,258.44. The trade was a 27.54% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders own 34.15% of the company's stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On AST SpaceMobile

A number of hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Rakuten Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of AST SpaceMobile in the 1st quarter valued at about $705,398,000. Alphabet Inc. bought a new position in shares of AST SpaceMobile during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $203,375,000. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in 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 buying an additional 4,955,941 shares during the last quarter. T. Rowe Price Investment Management Inc. purchased a new position in AST SpaceMobile during the fourth quarter worth $59,523,000. Finally, Jump Financial LLC bought a new position in AST SpaceMobile during the first quarter valued at $14,750,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 60.95% of the company's stock.

AST SpaceMobile Price Performance

Shares of ASTS traded up $0.02 during trading hours on Friday, reaching $30.87. 9,906,798 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 12,135,724. The company has a current ratio of 5.80, a quick ratio of 5.80 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.31. The company's 50-day moving average price is $24.02 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $24.58. The company has a market cap of $9.77 billion, a P/E ratio of -14.53 and a beta of 2.02. AST SpaceMobile has a 52-week low of $8.09 and a 52-week high of $39.08.

AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Monday, May 12th. The company reported ($0.20) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.17) by ($0.03). The business had revenue of $0.72 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.85 million. On average, analysts anticipate that AST SpaceMobile will post -0.4 earnings per share for the current 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.