Huiwen Yao Sells 40,000 Shares of AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS) Stock

AST SpaceMobile, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTS) CTO Huiwen Yao sold 40,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, December 5th. The shares were sold at an average price of $73.52, for a total value of $2,940,800.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 4,750 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $349,220. This represents a 89.39% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website.

Huiwen Yao also recently made the following trade(s):

• On Tuesday, September 16th, Huiwen Yao sold 40,000 shares of AST SpaceMobile stock. The shares were sold at an average price of $40.58, for a total transaction of $1,623,200.00.

AST SpaceMobile Price Performance

Shares of AST SpaceMobile stock opened at $72.84 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.43, a current ratio of 9.56 and a quick ratio of 9.48. The company has a market cap of $26.73 billion, a PE ratio of -58.74 and a beta of 2.76. The firm has a fifty day moving average price of $70.04 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $53.81. AST SpaceMobile, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $17.50 and a fifty-two week high of $102.79.

AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ:ASTS) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Monday, November 10th. The company reported ($0.45) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.18) by ($0.27). AST SpaceMobile had a negative net margin of 1,639.59% and a negative return on equity of 27.76%. The company had revenue of $14.74 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $22.04 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted ($1.10) EPS. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 1236.4% on a year-over-year basis. Analysts expect that AST SpaceMobile, Inc. will post -0.4 EPS for the current year.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On AST SpaceMobile

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Rakuten Group Inc. acquired a new position in AST SpaceMobile in the first quarter valued at about $705,398,000. Vanguard Group Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of AST SpaceMobile by 13.4% in the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 19,919,888 shares of the company’s stock worth $977,668,000 after acquiring an additional 2,351,539 shares in the last quarter. Clear Street Group Inc. bought a new stake in AST SpaceMobile during the 3rd quarter worth approximately $90,129,000. Northern Trust Corp grew its position in AST SpaceMobile by 2.7% during the 1st quarter. Northern Trust Corp now owns 1,266,315 shares of the company’s stock worth $28,796,000 after acquiring an additional 33,259 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Gotham Asset Management LLC increased its holdings in AST SpaceMobile by 37.8% during the 3rd quarter. Gotham Asset Management LLC now owns 843,738 shares of the company’s stock valued at $41,411,000 after purchasing an additional 231,549 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 60.95% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

ASTS has been the subject of a number of research reports. William Blair assumed coverage on AST SpaceMobile in a research report on Thursday, August 21st. They issued a “market perform” rating for the company. Scotiabank raised AST SpaceMobile from a “sector underperform” rating to a “sector perform” rating and set a $45.60 target price for the company in a research report on Monday, November 24th. Barclays lowered shares of AST SpaceMobile from an “overweight” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $60.00 price target on the stock. in a report on Friday, October 17th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of AST SpaceMobile in a report on Monday. Finally, Roth Capital reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of AST SpaceMobile in a research report on Tuesday, August 12th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and three have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $45.66.

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.