Washington-based satellite operator Intelsat is having a prosperous time on the New York Stock Exchange. On April 16th its shares rose a massive 18.79 per cent, from $7.14 to $8.41 a share, and another rise of 8.3 per cent on April 18th and to end the day at $9.11, and a market capitalisation of $1.09 billion.

The day’s trading followed on from a solid previous week, and to show how very much investor sentiment has improved, it is worth remembering that within the past year the shares have traded as low as $2.44 (in early February 2018).  In fact, Intelsat has grown 119 per cent in just 14 days of trading.

Two factors helped give the stock its lift. First up, was a statement from Intelsat on April 16th with news that the USA’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had selected Intelsat to develop and operate a satellite payload to aid precision approaches to airports for aircraft, and independent of ground-based infrastructure.”

This technology is part of the FAA’s Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) as an improvement of conventional GPS-based satellites. The payload will be integrated into a new Galaxy 30 craft.

A second news element that might well have influenced shareholders is the military activity over Syria and the Middle East region in general. This requires highly sophisticated satellite feeds to carry the images from the drones and observation aircraft operating over the region.

Categories: Articles, Business, DTH/Satellite