One of the standouts of today's afternoon trading session has been Charter Communications, which logged a -7.0% drop and underperformed the S&P 500 by -8.0%. The Cable Television stock is now trading at $334.09 per share and is -17.44% below its average target price of $404.66. Analysts have set target prices ranging from $261.0 to 525.0 dollars per share, and have given the stock an average rating of hold.
Charter Communications's short interest can give us an idea of what future price movements the market expects from the stock. The short interest is the percentage of shares that are tied up in short positions, which will provide gains to the investor only if the stock price falls. The stock's short interest is 11.8% which seems to indicate a mixed sentiment on CHARTER COMMUNICATIONS
When a stock is sold short, it means an investor has borrowed shares of the stock from their broker, and then sold them at the going market price. The investor hopes for the price to decline, so that they might buy those shares back at a lower price in the future. Once they do, they can return the borrowed shares to their broker, and keep the profit they made on the transaction.
Another way to gauge the sentiment on Charter Communications is to look at the percentage of institutions that are invested in the stock. In this case, 72.3% of the shares are held by pension, mutual, and hedge funds, which shows that these institutions probably have strong confidence in the stock.
If institutions are invested in a particular stock, it shows in most cases that they have performed quality research and concluded that it is a good investment. In some cases, however, increases in institutional ownership could be a sign of a takeover attempt or proxy fight, which can actually injure share prices. Also, institutions are not infallible, and can certainly make miscalculations -- often with spectacular results.
Overall, there is mixed market sentiment towards Charter Communications because of an analyst consensus of some upside potential, a hold rating, an above average percentage of its shares sold short, and an average number of institutional investors. Investors should not base their decisions on market sentiment only, they should also be aware of a stock's fundamentals before committing.
At a glance, here are some essential statistics you may want to know about CHTR:
-
It has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $31.91 per share
-
Charter Communications has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 10.5 while the S&P 500 average is 29.3
-
The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 3.37 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 4.74
-
Charter Communications is a Telecommunications company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 20.57 and 2.36 respectively
