Stock Wars

Hety: Hey, how are you? Did you see Comcast today?

George: Why the hell would I look at Comcast?

Hety: Because there's an opportunity with low P/E

George: P/E doesn't mean shit if the company's bleeding customers. Cord-cutting is real…. Starlink's about to nuke their internet business. This thing's toast.

Hety: Yes, video subscribers are declining 5% annually. But that's one part. Broadband revenue is $25.8 billion, video is $26.4 billion. The market's obsessed with a 5% loss while ignoring the massive stable base.

George: The stock's been down five years… You could've just bought SPY.

Hety: Exactly why I'm buying now. NBC Universal spinoff comes next year. That's the catalyst. I'm buying before it, not after.

George: You're sleeping on Starlink, bro. Low-Earth satellites are the future. Comcast infrastructure is worthless.

Hety: Latency is garbage for video. Try watching the Super Bowl at 50ms latency. Besides, Comcast partnered with Starlink for enterprise solutions two years ago. They're becoming the distribution partner, not getting disrupted.

George: Corporate partnerships are BS. And you're betting on competitors cooperating. That's risky.

Hety: It's rational. Comcast owns last-mile infrastructure. Starlink owns satellites. They solve different problems—Comcast handles urban and suburban, Starlink handles rural. It's complementary.

George: Best case, they don't kill each other. That's not a moon shot. Where's the juice?

Hety: The juice is in the valuation and buyback power. Comcast generates 20-25% free cash flow yield after dividends. That cash pays down debt in four years and buys back the entire market cap in another four. The multiple expands because they're literally buying back their own shares.

George: Alright, tell me about the parks. Because Universal Studios is actually a real business.

Hety: Universal just opened a 32-acre park in Texas for younger families. But they're investing $8 billion to open a new park in the UK by 2031. They own the only theme parks with Marvel characters—Disney wishes they had Spider-Man rights. That's a moat.

George: Theme parks are capex hell…. Constant investment, vulnerable to recessions. One pandemic and you're toast.

Hety: True. But parks EBITDA grew from $1.46 billion in 2015 to $3.08 billion in 2025. That's historical fact. They're in early innings.

George: Still boring as hell, bro. You're talking 5-10 years for this to work out. I could turn that capital into 3x in a year trading tech.

Hety: You could. Or you could be underwater again next year. I'm not trying to turn $10k into $30k. I'm compounding capital over decades. Let me hit you with the metrics: Market cap $84 billion—institutional-grade. Debt-to-equity 1.01—they owe less than they own. Earnings growth over ten years: approximately 130%. Dividend yield 5.6%. P/E 7.7. Price-to-book 0.94. That's 7 out of 7 on Benjamin Graham's checklist. When's the last time you saw that?

George: You could run that on AT&T too, bro. Everyone who bought AT&T at $20 as a value play got fucking destroyed. You're doing the same thing.

Hety: Fair point. But Comcast isn't AT&T. AT&T is a telecom in a declining market with no hedges. Comcast has three legs: connectivity, content, and entertainment. If one fails, the company doesn't collapse.

George: Or all three get wobbly at the same time and you're bag holding for a decade.

Hety: Possible. That's why I have margin of safety. But the odds are in my favor when you're getting paid 5.6% in dividends while you wait for sentiment to shift.

George: Here's my real problem…. opportunity cost. You've been DCAing this shit for a year and you're still underwater. Meanwhile, SPY's crushing it. That loss is real.

Hety: You're not wrong. Patience is the hardest part of value investing. But opportunity cost only matters if there's a better opportunity. SPY probably returns 10% annually going forward. Comcast at a 7.7 P/E with buybacks and growing parks might deliver 12-15% once sentiment shifts. That spread compounds. And it doesn't require me to get lucky. George: Might. That word's doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Hety: I'm buying a real company with real cash flows at a real discount. I'm not banking on miracles. I'm banking on mean reversion. The market hates cable stocks. The market hates Comcast. But the market is wrong. If the market's right and this trades sideways five more years? I'm getting a 5.6% dividend reinvested every year. Eventually, the free cash flow buybacks force the multiple up. That's math, not gambling.

George: I hate Comcast, bro. Everyone hates Comcast. People celebrate when competitors get fiber in their neighborhood. You're betting on a universally despised company.

Hety: Exactly. Nobody wants to look at the balance sheet. Everyone's too busy complaining about customer service to notice it's a cash machine. That hatred is baked into the stock price at 0.94x book value. When everyone agrees something is terrible, that's when value hides.

George: Alright, so you're banking on the NBC Universal spinoff?

Hety: Exactly. Spinoffs create dislocations—forced sellers, uninformed sellers. That's opportunity. But more importantly, each business gets valued on its own merits. Right now investors see "cable company with legacy media." After the spinoff: NBC Universal as streaming, content, theme parks, NFL, FIFA, Olympics rights—a quality asset commanding a premium. And Comcast as broadband, video, business services—a stable, high-margin cash generator even if shrinking.

George: Might. And if the market doesn't reprice? You're just sitting on separated losers.

Hety: Fair point. But the math is compelling. Market cap is $84 billion. Apply even a modest 12x to NBC Universal's EBITDA alone—you've got significant intrinsic value just there. Add connectivity cash flows and you're way below intrinsic value.

George: Look, I get the thesis, bro. But it's a boomer thesis. "Hold it, collect dividends, in 10 years you're rich." What if cord-cutting accelerates? What if fiber destroys broadband? What if the spinoff is a fucking disaster?

Hety: Then I lose money. That's the risk. But at 7.7 P/E, Comcast just needs to not get destroyed. That's a low bar. And the base case isn't aggressive—the company doesn't need parks to explode or NBC Universal to dominate streaming.

George: The low bar only works if you believe the thesis.

Hety: Fair. But I've done my due diligence, looked at the numbers, stress-tested everything. I keep coming back to one conclusion: this is cheap. Really cheap.

George: And I keep coming back to one conclusion: there's sexier things to buy.

Hety: There always are. But in thirty years, I'll own a company that paid me dividends, bought back its own shares, and still generates substantial cash flows. You'll be somewhere else.

George: Hopefully a lot richer. Laughs.

Hety: Maybe. Or maybe you'll still be looking for the next quick score. That's the difference between us, George. Alright, speak to you later.