Charter Communications: Persistent Broadband and EBITDA Headwinds Justify Continuing Sell Rating Despite Low Valuation

Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall has maintained their bearish stance on CHTR stock, giving a Sell rating on January 30.

Steven Cahall has given his Sell rating due to a combination of factors tied primarily to subscriber and earnings risk over the medium to long term. While Charter’s latest quarter and 2026 outlook did not introduce fresh immediate problems, he remains pessimistic about the trajectory of broadband subscribers, expecting ongoing annual declines that, in his view, will ultimately pressure EBITDA despite management’s guidance for slight growth. He also sees moderating ARPU gains and believes that the recent quarter’s results largely benefited from already low expectations rather than a true inflection in fundamentals, leaving limited conviction in a sustained free cash flow improvement story.

Cahall also highlights that mobile momentum has cooled, with weaker net additions and intensifying postpaid competition, prompting him to lower mobile growth assumptions and reinforcing his view that mobile and video are mainly defensive tools to mitigate broadband churn rather than strong standalone growth engines. His modeling suggests that, once the Cox acquisition is fully incorporated, Charter’s EBITDA could be roughly flat to slightly declining over 2025–2030, which caps upside to equity value even as capex falls and leverage trends gradually lower. Although the stock rallied on the earnings release and trades at what appears to be undemanding multiples, he expects future negative revisions to subscriber forecasts as competitive pressures from fiber and fixed wireless intensify, and this anticipated deterioration underpins his continued Underweight/Sell stance despite a modestly higher price target.

According to TipRanks, Cahall is a 5-star analyst with an average return of 7.8% and a 56.73% success rate. Cahall covers the Communication Services sector, focusing on stocks such as Nexstar Media Group, Gray Television, and Comcast.

In another report released on January 30, Goldman Sachs also maintained a Sell rating on the stock with a $185.00 price target.