Viasat’s (VSAT) “Buy” Rating Reiterated at Needham & Company LLC

Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed their buy rating on shares of Viasat (NASDAQ:VSAT) in a report published on Tuesday morning,Benzinga reports. Needham & Company LLC currently has a $19.00 price target on the communications equipment provider’s stock.

Separately, Barclays dropped their price target on Viasat from $24.00 to $9.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, November 20th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $18.33.

Viasat Stock Performance

Shares of Viasat stock opened at $11.56 on Tuesday. The company has a market capitalization of $1.48 billion, a PE ratio of -3.71 and a beta of 1.34. The company has a current ratio of 1.44, a quick ratio of 1.34 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.28. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $9.02 and its 200 day simple moving average is $12.39. Viasat has a 12 month low of $6.69 and a 12 month high of $26.70.

Viasat (NASDAQ:VSAT) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, November 6th. The communications equipment provider reported ($1.07) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.54) by ($0.53). The business had revenue of $1.12 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.11 billion. Viasat had a negative return on equity of 7.58% and a negative net margin of 8.73%. Viasat’s revenue for the quarter was down 8.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted ($6.16) earnings per share. On average, research analysts predict that Viasat will post -2.64 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, EVP Mark J. Miller sold 3,564 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Thursday, December 12th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.21, for a total transaction of $32,824.44. Following the transaction, the executive vice president now directly owns 350,351 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,226,732.71. The trade was a 1.01 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. 3.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. KBC Group NV boosted its holdings in shares of Viasat by 63.7% during the third quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 2,623 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $31,000 after acquiring an additional 1,021 shares during the period. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company lifted its holdings in Viasat by 2.6% during the 3rd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 63,656 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock worth $760,000 after purchasing an additional 1,584 shares during the last quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC boosted its stake in Viasat by 176.3% in the 3rd quarter. GAMMA Investing LLC now owns 2,777 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $33,000 after purchasing an additional 1,772 shares during the period. Amalgamated Bank grew its holdings in Viasat by 9.3% in the 3rd quarter. Amalgamated Bank now owns 26,172 shares of the communications equipment provider’s stock valued at $312,000 after buying an additional 2,218 shares in the last quarter. Finally, National Bank of Canada FI bought a new position in Viasat during the 3rd quarter worth $27,000. Institutional investors own 86.05% of the company’s stock.

About Viasat

Viasat, Inc provides broadband and communications products and services worldwide. The company's Satellite Services segment offers satellite-based fixed broadband services, including broadband internet access and voice over internet protocol services to consumers and businesses; in-flight entertainment and aviation software services to commercial airlines and private business jets; satellite-based connectivity services; mobile broadband services, including satellite-based internet services to energy offshore vessels, cruise ships, consumer ferries, and yachts; and energy services, which include ultra-secure solutions IP connectivity, bandwidth-optimized over-the-top applications, industrial internet-of-things big data enablement, and industry-leading machine learning analytics.