market folly

Steve Mandel's hedge fund firm Lone Pine Capital has filed a 13G with the SEC regarding its position in Charter Communications (CHTR).  Per the filing, Lone Pine now owns 5.7% of the company with over 6.33 million shares.

This is a sizable increase from the around 3.3 million CHTR shares they owned at the end of Q1.  The filing was made due to activity on July 6th.

Charter has announced a takeover of Time Warner Cable (TWC) and Bright House.  They swooped in for the assets once it became clear that Comcast's (CMCSA) previous bid for TWC wasn't going to be approved by regulators and was called off.  Many investors seem to think, however, that CHTR's deal will go through.

As such, arbitrageurs have been going long TWC and shorting the corresponding amount of CHTR, driving down the price.  The deal spread on this was around 9% at one point but recently is closer to 6-7%.  Lone Pine saw this as an opportunity and almost doubled its stake. This stock been a consensus buy among hedge funds we track in our Hedge Fund Wisdom newsletter and has been flagged numerous times in past issues.

Per Google Finance, Charter Communications is "a provider of cable services in the United States, offering a variety of entertainment, information and communications solutions to residential and commercial customers. The Company sells its video, Internet and voice services primarily on a subscription basis, often in a bundle of two or more services. The Company provides broadband communications solutions to business and carrier organizations, such as video entertainment services, Internet access, business telephone services, data networking and fiber connectivity to cellular towers and office buildings. Through its hybrid fiber and coaxial cable network, the Company offers its customers traditional cable video services, as well as advanced video services, Internet services and voice services. The Company’s voice services are primarily provided using voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology, to transmit digital voice signals over the Company’s systems."