Altice USA Shares Fall for Third Straight Trading Day

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Altice USA shares fell for the third straight trading day on Monday, slipping nearly 6% after analysts at Credit Suisse and Raymond James downgraded the stock.

Altice USA shares closed Monday at $19.38 each, down 5.8% or $1.20 per share, after reaching another 52-week low of $19.21 per share earlier in the day. Altice USA shares are now down 23.3% since Sept. 23, when CEO Dexter Goei said at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference that Q3 broadband additions for the company would be negative.

Several analysts have adjusted their estimates on Altice USA since the Goldman conference, and on Monday, Credit Suisse analyst Doug Mitchelson wrote that he was concerned about the company, adding that he was wrong about Altice USA’s broadband competitiveness and according to reports said that he expects the company’s new investment strategy to “take at least several quarters, if not longer, to begin bearing fruit.”

He lowered his rating on the shares to “neutral” from “outperform” and reduced his 12-month price target on the stock to $24 from $46 per share.

Raymond James media analyst Frank Louthan IV also noted Altice USA’s decision to move away from share repurchases -- which he saw as a key component of its valuation -- as a reason for downgrading the stock from “outperform” to “market perform” on Monday.

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Mike Farrell

Mike Farrell is senior content producer, finance for Multichannel News/B+C, covering finance, operations and M&A at cable operators and networks across the industry. He joined Multichannel News in September 1998 and has written about major deals and top players in the business ever since. He also writes the On The Money blog, offering deeper dives into a wide variety of topics including, retransmission consent, regional sports networks,and streaming video. In 2015 he won the Jesse H. Neal Award for Best Profile, an in-depth look at the Syfy Network’s Sharknado franchise and its impact on the industry.