American Century Companies Inc. Has $68.52 Million Stock Position in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS)

American Century Companies Inc. raised its stake in EchoStar Co. (NASDAQ:SATS) by 1.0% in the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel reports. The firm owned 2,992,060 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 28,779 shares during the quarter. American Century Companies Inc.’s holdings in EchoStar were worth $68,518,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC raised its position in EchoStar by 251.3% during the fourth quarter. Smartleaf Asset Management LLC now owns 1,609 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $37,000 after acquiring an additional 1,151 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV raised its position in shares of EchoStar by 65.1% in the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 6,684 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $153,000 after purchasing an additional 2,635 shares during the period. Xponance Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of EchoStar by 8.7% during the fourth quarter. Xponance Inc. now owns 8,773 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $201,000 after acquiring an additional 701 shares during the period. Cibc World Markets Corp acquired a new position in EchoStar in the 4th quarter valued at $261,000. Finally, Neo Ivy Capital Management acquired a new position in shares of EchoStar in the third quarter valued at about $272,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 33.62% of the company’s stock.

EchoStar Price Performance

EchoStar stock opened at $26.70 on Wednesday. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $28.00 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $25.54. EchoStar Co. has a 12 month low of $12.66 and a 12 month high of $32.48. The company has a market capitalization of $7.65 billion, a PE ratio of -2.91 and a beta of 0.65. The company has a current ratio of 0.67, a quick ratio of 0.61 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.11.

EchoStar (NASDAQ:SATS) last posted its earnings results on Thursday, February 27th. The communications equipment provider reported $1.24 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 business had revenue of $3.97 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $3.93 billion. Analysts expect that EchoStar Co. will post -1.99 EPS for the current year.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of equities analysts have commented on SATS shares. Morgan Stanley initiated coverage on EchoStar in a research note on Monday, December 16th. They set an “equal weight” rating and a $25.00 price objective on the stock. UBS Group upped their price objective on EchoStar from $15.00 to $28.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Monday, January 13th. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price 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.