Forward Estimates
Forward Estimates — What's on the Table and How Likely It Is
The external search returned three independent slates of forward numbers on Charter: a Yahoo Finance EPS grid (Q2 26, Q3 26, FY26, FY27), a MarketScreener annual P&L projection through FY2028, and three different "consensus" 12-month price targets that disagree by $70. The two estimate sets are internally consistent — flat revenue, EBITDA holding the low-$22B band, and EPS recovering toward $42–46 — but the price-target stack is not. Stale Buy targets ($435–$525 from mid-2024 to Apr 2026) are still dragging two aggregators above $315, while every April 2026 revision was down, and the freshest median sits closer to $215–$230. The honest read: the operating estimates are credible; the headline price targets are not — and even the operating estimates rest on Q2's ARPU print holding.
Spot price (5/15/26)
FY26 EPS — avg of 16
FY26 EBITDA est ($B)
Q2 26 revenue est ($B)
Consensus PT (20 analysts)
EV/EBITDA (TTM)
1. The EPS estimate grid
Yahoo Finance's analyst page (data current as of mid-May 2026; year-ago figures match reported quarters) is the highest-cadence estimate file the search returned. Sixteen analysts cover the full year, fifteen the current quarter. The range is wide: FY27 high to low is $31.28 → $52.68 — a 68% spread on a single year, two prints out.
The freshest single-quarter print on this grid is Q2 2026, due Jul. 24, 2026: Seeking Alpha's normalized consensus is $10.36 (GAAP $10.23) on revenue of $13.53B, and "3 estimates up, 2 down" in the last 90 days. Zacks' pre-Q1-print number was $10.76 / $13.63B — that has been cut. The Q2 normalized estimate ($10.36) is the cleanest near-term decision point because it tests two prints' worth of the post-Q1 narrative.
Sources: Yahoo Finance Analysis page (20260517T111556Z-...-Analyst_consensus.json); Seeking Alpha CHTR Earnings page (20260517T111600Z-...-Earnings_track_record.json); Zacks Apr 24 Q1 earnings recap (20260517T111838Z-...-Capture_current_market_numbers_and_revisions.json).
2. The annual P&L projection through FY2028
MarketScreener's consensus projection (20 analysts) is the only multi-year top-to-bottom P&L the search returned. It paints a gentle decline into a trough in FY2027, then flat: revenue rolls $54.8B → $54.3B → $53.9B → $54.1B, EBITDA holds $22.1–22.7B, and net income oscillates around $5.0B.
A useful sanity-check: Simply Wall St., post-Q1 (Apr. 28, 2026), surveyed the same 16-analyst panel and got FY2026 revenue of $54.3B and EPS $41.78 — down from $54.6B / $44.20 pre-print. That converges almost exactly on MarketScreener's $54.27B revenue and Yahoo's $41.91 EPS. The two independent slates triangulate to the same picture.
Source: MarketScreener Financials page, publish_date 2026-05-15 (20260517T111751Z-...-Estimate_revisions.json); Simply Wall St. post-earnings note (20260517T111600Z-...-Earnings_track_record.json).
Items Parallel.ai did not return: segment-level revenue estimates (residential vs SMB vs enterprise vs mobile vs advertising), FY26–FY28 capex consensus, free-cash-flow consensus, and pro-forma post-Cox-close projections. Where the narrative refers to capex or FCF below, it is from company guidance surfaced in catalysts-claude.md, not from the search.
3. The price-target stack — three "consensus" numbers, $70 apart
This is where the file gets noisy. Three aggregators with overlapping panels disagree materially. The dispersion is not a methodology quirk — it is the direct consequence of how each aggregator treats stale targets.
Why MarketBeat and Benzinga read $315 while MarketScreener reads $245. The Benzinga FAQ confirms the high in its sample is TD Cowen $525 from July 29, 2024 — pre-summer-2025 collapse and pre-Q1-2026 ARPU break. A single stale Buy that high pulls a 22-broker average up by roughly $15–20. The MarketBeat number is computed off a similar pool. MarketScreener's $245.31 (20 analysts) drops the staler outliers and looks closer to what the freshest April-2026 revision cluster ($210–$230 median, with one Benchmark Buy at $380) actually averages to. The honest "freshest 8 brokers" average from the table above is $235 — below all three published aggregator numbers.
4. April 2026 revisions — every move was down
The freshest cluster of revisions is unambiguous: every single one of the seven brokers that re-priced in April 2026 cut their target, and the cuts averaged roughly 17%. Benchmark cut twice (4/23 and 4/27).
A small reconciliation note: the Estimate_revisions.json extract shows Benchmark $380 (from $435) on Apr 27; the MarketBeat write-up dated May 9 still lists Benchmark at $435 (from $455) on Apr 23. The likely explanation is two distinct cuts inside four days, and not all aggregators have caught the second one. Either way, Benchmark — the Buy-side outlier — is moving the same direction as the bears.
Sources: MarketScreener Consensus page (20260517T111751Z-...-Estimate_revisions.json); MarketBeat 2026-05-09 instant alert (20260517T111556Z-...-Analyst_consensus.json).
5. How likely is each estimate to actually happen?
The honest read is below. Likelihood is graded Likely / Mixed / Unlikely and the evidence is the existing report.
6. What would have to be true — and what would break the forecasts
The estimates above are coherent as a system: they assume Charter holds revenue flat, holds EBITDA margin, closes Cox by the Sept. 15, 2026 DOJ deadline, and lets the LBRD share retirement do most of the EPS lifting. Two parallel lists capture the load-bearing assumptions and the disconfirming evidence.
The single number to watch first: Q2 2026 residential ARPU YoY, in the Jul. 24, 2026 release. Q1's -1.4% was the first negative print in 20+ years. If Q2 lands at -0.5% or better with a credible mix-shift explanation, the MarketScreener flat-revenue projection and Yahoo's $41.91 FY26 EPS are well supported, and the $245 PT becomes the right anchor. If Q2 lands at -1.5% or worse, EBITDA will follow, the FY27 $45.58 EPS gets cut to the $31-$36 range, and even the $245 PT looks high.
7. Net verdict
The operating estimates (revenue flat, EBITDA in the low-$22B band, EPS $42-$46 over the next two years) are internally consistent and adequately supported by the most recent data. They assume a Q2 ARPU print that does not get materially worse, a Cox close in 2026, and a capex pace that tracks guidance — three assumptions the report (catalysts-claude.md, competition-claude.md, long-term-thesis-claude.md) flags as plausible but not yet proven. The FY27 EPS spread of $31-$53 is the cleanest read on how unsettled the underwriting is.
The headline price targets ($245–$316 depending on aggregator) are not consistent. The two aggregators reading $316 are arithmetic artifacts — they include a TD Cowen Buy at $525 from July 2024 that no longer reflects the post-ARPU-break thesis. The freshest panel (April 2026 cluster, excluding Benchmark's $380) clusters at $210–$230. A $245 PT is the maximum defensible read; a $315 PT is not. The Apr-2026 revision sweep — every broker that re-priced cut — confirms the direction of travel is down, not up.
Insiders (CEO + Director, ~$1.6M at $172-174 in late April) are voting that the freshest cluster has overshot. They may be right; that question is decided on Jul. 24, 2026.