Shares of Comcast and Charter will continue to face pressure from here, according to Atlantic Equities. Analyst Hamilton Faber downgraded both companies to neutral and lowered estimates, pointing to poor quarterly results. “For Q2, both companies reported essentially no broadband additions, by far the worst result since both companies launched the service. It has become clear that the two companies are facing greater pressures than we had anticipated,” Faber wrote. “While Q2 is always a seasonally weaker quarter due to college disconnects (for 2015-2019, Q2 was 14% of annual adds for Comcast and 18% of annual adds for Charter), this quarter’s weakness is far more than seasonality and we expect issues to persist for some time,” Faber added. The two companies are facing challenges the analyst does not believe will end within the next 18 months, including “severely depressed” broadband additions that will continue next year. “In the absence of robust broadband volumes, we believe valuations will remain pressured and there will be a lack of catalysts to spark investor interest,” Faber added. The analyst lowered his Comcast price target to $44 per share from $60, a roughly 27% cut. The new price target is 10% above where shares closed Friday. Charter’s price target was slashed to $477 from $755, a 37% cut. It’s slightly lower than Friday’s closing price of $478.12. Shares of Comcast and Charter are down roughly 20% and 26% this year, respectively. —CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report. Disclosure: Comcast is the owner of NBCUniversal, parent company of CNBC.
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