Cable and Telecom Bear Hits Wall Street

RBC Capital's Jonathan Atkin slashed targets across the telecom and cable sector in one sweep Sunday. Charter Communications took the hardest hit — two separate downgrades from both RBC and JP Morgan in the same session. RBC cut its Charter target to $160 from $220. JP Morgan trimmed its own target to $200 from $215. Charter already carries a heavy short interest load at 25.5% of free float, signalling the bears are well positioned.

Comcast and AT&T also saw Atkin lower targets. Comcast dropped to $27 from $32. AT&T fell to $27 from $31. T-Mobile escaped more lightly, with its target cut to $230 from $240 while retaining a Buy rating.

Away from telecom, ServiceNow drew a sharp target cut from DA Davidson. Analyst Gil Luria trimmed his price target to $170 from $190, retaining a Buy. ServiceNow trades at a $106 billion market cap. The cut comes despite broad analyst Buy consensus, with 44 Buy ratings versus only 2 Sells.

On the energy side, UnitedHealth Group consensus target ticked up to $472 from $472, a small positive shift after weeks of pressure. SLB saw a modest target trim. Halliburton had one recommendation removed from the consensus pool entirely.