ATUS provides broadband, video, telephony, and mobile services to residential and business customers mainly through 2 brands - Optimum in NY metropolitan area and Suddenlink in south central US. Fundamentally the equity part of the company is an option as the main part of the EV is debt. It has about 26.5b in debt and a market cap of 2.5b for a total EV of 29b. With revenue hovering around 9-10b a year for the next few years and EBITDA around 4b the company could reach and EV of 36-40b at a 9.5 EV to EBITDA which would give the equity a price of $20-$25 per share, a 400% return from current levels. The risk of total loss of capital is high as companies burdened with this much debt occasionally go bankrupt. It carries a BB- rating from S&P Global Ratings witch translates to a potential bankruptcy rate of as high as 7%. Bonds are trading at around 7%-12% YTM. Another thing to watch out for is funds that are long the bonds often will go short the equity as a hedge which keeps a lid on the shares. The way to play here is by buying when extremely oversold and take quick profits into any rally, maybe average down once only to give you a better chance at a decent price as the stock is so volatile. You definitely don't want to average more than once here, and certainly not marry the stock. Take a couple of stabs give it some time and if it doesn't work cut your losses and move on. The short interest is relatively high at 20% which: 1- confirms the theses of long bond holders using it as a hedge, 2- it adds fuel to the fire during an up move in case of good news.

11/03/22 Update: After reporting dissapointing earnings that missed both top and bottom line ATUS price dropped by almost 30%. The company reported losses to subscribers even though it had mentioned previously that it expected subscriber growth in the second half of the year. Clearly that is not playing out, and leaves the company in tough position going forward. With that in mind the company has assets that are valuable and could be target of an acquisition. With the new results we are updating the equity price to $16-$20. The main theses here remains the same an option play, buy bottoms, sell rallies. Average down only once, if that.

Technicals - Altice is trading at extreme oversold conditions but so is the market in general so a bounce back might come soon, the level to watch for in case of a rally is the 50% retracement around 7-7.50 area. I currently have a small position in the stock and might add one last time around 5, however I must say that during this process I have almost convinced myself that I am probably better off buying some options on Google or Tesla than owning this. With that said for me personally this makes sense for diversification purposes as I already own several tech companies including Google, Tesla, Microsoft, Snowflake.