Charter Commications Draws Shorts (CHTR)

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

Charter Communications, the ultra-troubled cable firm, watched shares short in the company’s stock rise by 14.2 million to 76.2 million shares. It was the largest increase in a short position in December for a stock traded on Nasdaq.

The company is awash in debt. The stock has gone from a 52-week low of $.88 to a recent price of $3.16. Wall St. may think that is just too far, too fast. The stock has gotten some analyst upgrades recently, but the company’s shares have not advanced in a month.

To quote Morningstar’s most recent analysis of the stock: "Pursuing growth while supporting a dangerously high level of debt is a delicate balance that we are not confident Charter can achieve without a major restructuring."

The stock is too expensive.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

ABNB Vol: 15,913,532
MCHP Vol: 19,139,274
PLTR Vol: 77,244,625
MRNA Vol: 6,820,582
AXON Vol: 1,591,869

Top Losing Stocks

TTD Vol: 133,458,224
CTRA Vol: 73,319,495
AKAM Vol: 8,143,961
ZTS Vol: 12,784,553
RMD Vol: 3,810,438