New York, June 11, 2026, 13:58 EDT
- EchoStar was up about 9.1% at $125.67 as traders watched SpaceX IPO talk.
- SpaceX is set to raise around $75 billion at a $1.8 trillion valuation, and the company plans a Nasdaq listing Friday, Reuters said.
- EchoStar’s shares are still trading on how investors see its spectrum dealings with SpaceX and AT&T. The old pay-TV and broadband units are under some pressure.
EchoStar Corporation shares shot higher on Thursday afternoon, with the Nasdaq-listed telecom and satellite company drawing fresh attention just as Wall Street readies for SpaceX’s entry. SATS was up $10.43 to $125.67 at 13:58 EDT. The stock moved between $115.98 and $126.58 earlier, and more than 10.3 million shares changed hands. EchoStar’s market cap was around $36.3 billion.
SpaceX’s much-watched IPO fueled the latest rally as investors looked to what could be one of the biggest public listings on record. Reuters said Thursday that BlackRock aimed to pick up at least $5 billion in SpaceX shares, quoting a Wall Street Journal report, and added the order book shut on Wednesday with Nasdaq trading set for Friday. Reuters said it couldn’t confirm the WSJ details on its own.
EchoStar is back in focus for SpaceX traders after the pair struck spectrum deals. In September, EchoStar said it would sell its AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses to SpaceX for around $17 billion—up to $8.5 billion paid in cash and up to $8.5 billion in SpaceX shares. SpaceX will also cover about $2 billion in EchoStar debt interest payments through November 2027.
That exposure broadened when, in November, EchoStar said it reached a revised deal to sell its unpaired AWS-3 licenses to SpaceX. The sale price: about $2.6 billion in SpaceX stock. That’s after the previous AWS-4 and H-block deals. SATS sentiment got tied more closely to how investors view SpaceX’s value.
The proxy trade around EchoStar has swung around. Barron’s said Thursday some investors saw EchoStar as a cheaper route to SpaceX, but also pointed to risks like profit-taking, possible changes in demand if SpaceX becomes directly traded, and questions over when EchoStar could actually get its expected SpaceX shares. The Barron’s piece also noted TD Cowen’s Greg Williams recently put EchoStar’s value at $155 a share.
More analyst notes on SpaceX landed this week, adding to EchoStar’s recent run. Reuters said on Thursday that Oppenheimer started coverage on SpaceX with an “outperform” and a $190 target, which is around 41% higher than the reported $135 IPO price. Oppenheimer’s Timothy Horan called SpaceX the “only vertically integrated AI company with the required capital, data, LLMs, hardware, manufacturing and engineering talent.” Reuters also wrote that New Street Research gave a $165 target and Morningstar put SpaceX value at $780 billion, which is less than half the IPO target. Reuters
EchoStar moved the other way as the rest of the market traded higher. Reuters said that by 11:53 a.m. ET, the Dow gained 0.54%, S&P 500 added 0.26% and the Nasdaq rose 0.41%. The communication services sector dropped 1.8% as Alphabet and Meta slipped.
The SpaceX agreement is just a piece of EchoStar’s current balance sheet overhaul. In August, EchoStar said it would sell 3.45 GHz and 600 MHz spectrum licenses to AT&T for about $23 billion. It also said Boost Mobile will keep running as a hybrid mobile network operator using its cloud-native 5G core and AT&T’s cell sites.
FCC signs off on EchoStar’s $40 billion spectrum sale to SpaceX and AT&T
The Federal Communications Commission last month approved EchoStar’s nearly $40 billion wireless spectrum sale to SpaceX and AT&T, Reuters said on May 12. The regulator said the deal would help boost connectivity nationwide.
EchoStar’s top line keeps sliding, with Q1 revenue at $3.67 billion, down from $3.87 billion a year back. The company posted a net loss of $146.89 million, which was less than the $202.67 million loss last year. Pay-TV users dropped by about 366,000 for the quarter. Broadband customers fell by 58,000. On the wireless side, retail subscribers were up by around 16,000.
EchoStar has picked up more index weight than it had earlier this year. S&P Dow Jones Indices said EchoStar will join the S&P 500 before the market opens on March 23 as part of the quarterly rebalance, putting the stock in the communication services group. With that move, SATS is now in one of the top U.S. stock benchmarks as some traders look at SpaceX’s listing and consider indirect exposure.
