Some Investing Thoughts On Altice USA Inc. (NYSE: ATUS)

Clarkston Capital Partners LLC has recently announced that it has increased stake in Altice USA Inc. (NYSE:ATUS) by 0.76%. After grabbing 38.14 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 0.29 million shares of the Communication Services Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 14.11% having worth around $129.29 million. Moreover, AQR Capital Management LLC increased its share by 0.99 million to have a control over 17.14 million shares. And Redwood Capital Management LLC raised its holdings to 9.93 million shares by acquiring 16.02 million shares or 5.93% of the stake.

Altice USA Inc. (ATUS) concluded trading on 09/13/23 at a closing price of $2.96, with 2.96 million shares of worth about $8.77 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained negative as price took a plunge of -15.91% during that period and on Wednesday the price saw a gain of about 5.71%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 454.73M shares, out of which, 394.09M shares are available for trading.

A deeper look into what the analysts at Wall Street are thinking about the price target of this stock provides us with the following: 23 analysts are covering the ATUS stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $4.52. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $16.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $2.00. The stock’s current price level is 33.63% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in loss of -48.0% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $16.00 would mean a gain of 81.5% for the stock.

According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), insiders took part in trade of the company’s stock for 20 times over the past 12 months. They bought 3,878,358 shares in 14 of the transactions. In 6 selling transactions, insiders dumped 1,857,968 shares.

Clarkston Partners Fund, Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, and Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Altice USA Inc. Clarkston Partners Fund is currently holding 10.0 million shares of worth totaling $33.9 million. The company recently came buying 0.0 shares which brought its stake up to 3.70% of the company’s outstanding shares. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund, after buying 5.6 million shares, have now control over 2.07% of the stake in the company. It holds 10657.0 shares of worth $18.97 million.

Altice USA Inc. (NYSE: ATUS) started trading at $2.78, below -$0.02 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 2.9900, or with a gain of 5.71%. Stock saw a price change of -4.82% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of -14.20%. Year-to-date (YTD), ATUS shares are showing a performance of -35.65% which decreased to -71.78% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $2.01 but also hit the highest price of $10.26 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Altice USA Inc. shares is 4.30 million. The stock is currently trading -4.05% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is down -7.92% for SMA50 and it goes to -16.55% lower than SMA200.

Clarkston Capital Partners LLC acquired 38.14 million shares of Altice USA Inc. having value of about $129.29 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by Clarkston Capital Partners LLC revealed that the firm now holds 0.29 million shares in the company valued at close to $854377.36, or have control over 0.76% stake in the company. Altice USA Inc. (NYSE: ATUS) currently have 454.73M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 59.80% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 59.58% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 75.85% and 30.78% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $1.35B and its 3Y-monthly beta is at 1.43. It has posted earnings per share of -$0.01 in the same period. It has Quick Ratio of 0.20. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for ATUS, volatility over the week remained 7.68% while standing at 5.14% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that Altice USA Inc. (ATUS) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $0.06 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $0.06 and it is $0.44 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target -$0.04 which is $0.17 at the higher side of the target for the same. When we compare those targets with actual EPS, we find that company posted an EPS of $0.19 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to drop by -80.00% while it is estimated to increase by 12.34% in next year. EPS is likely to shrink at an annualized rate of 6.40% for next 5-years, compared to annual growth of 18.70% made by the stock over the past 5-years.

Analysts at 23 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Altice USA Inc. (ATUS)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Moderate Buy” and assign it a score of 2.80. Out of those 23 Wall Street analysts, 6 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 15 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 1 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.

Digging deeper we find that several firms have released their research notes about the support levels of the stock. Most recent of them is a note released by TD Securities on January 23, 2023 offering a Hold rating for the stock and assigned a target price of $6 to it.