Investors Buy Large Volume of Altice USA Call Options (NYSE:ATUS)

Altice USA, Inc. (NYSE:ATUS) was the target of some unusual options trading on Tuesday. Stock traders purchased 5,692 call options on the company. This represents an increase of approximately 143% compared to the typical volume of 2,339 call options.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on ATUS shares. The Goldman Sachs Group began coverage on Altice USA in a report on Monday, July 1st. They set a “sell” rating and a $2.00 price target for the company. UBS Group lowered shares of Altice USA from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and reduced their target price for the stock from $4.00 to $2.00 in a research note on Friday, August 2nd. Finally, Evercore ISI dropped their price target on shares of Altice USA from $3.00 to $2.00 and set an “in-line” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, July 2nd. Six equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $1.97.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in ATUS. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC purchased a new stake in Altice USA in the 2nd quarter worth about $25,000. Headlands Technologies LLC purchased a new position in shares of Altice USA in the first quarter worth about $46,000. Quadrature Capital Ltd bought a new stake in shares of Altice USA in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $47,000. Alpine Global Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Altice USA during the 1st quarter valued at approximately $65,000. Finally, Swedbank AB bought a new position in Altice USA in the 1st quarter worth approximately $66,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 54.85% of the company’s stock.

Altice USA Stock Up 3.2 %

NYSE ATUS traded up $0.07 during trading hours on Tuesday, reaching $2.24. 2,262,979 shares of the company were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 3,545,586. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.03 billion, a P/E ratio of 225.00, a P/E/G ratio of 2.49 and a beta of 1.51. Altice USA has a 1 year low of $1.52 and a 1 year high of $3.66. The business’s 50 day simple moving average is $1.84 and its 200-day simple moving average is $2.14.

Altice USA (NYSE:ATUS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 1st. The company reported $0.03 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.08 by ($0.05). Altice USA had a negative return on equity of 1.54% and a negative net margin of 0.62%. The company had revenue of $2.24 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $2.25 billion. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $0.17 EPS. The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 3.6% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Altice USA will post 0.1 earnings per share for the current year.

About Altice USA

Altice USA, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides broadband communications and video services in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. It offers broadband, video, telephony, and mobile services to residential and business customers. The company's video services include delivery of broadcast stations and cable networks; over the top services; video-on-demand, high-definition channels, digital video recorder, and pay-per-view services; and platforms for video programming through mobile applications.