Every day, Wall Street analysts upgrade some stocks, downgrade others, and "initiate coverage" on a few more. But do these analysts even know what they're talking about? Today, we're taking one high-profile Wall Street pick and putting it under the microscope...

Comcast (NASDAQ:CMCSA) is a conundrum for investors.

On the one hand, Comcast regularly ranks among America's most hated companies -- mainly because it combines two things Americans hate: It's a cable company, and it's a near-monopoly business in the areas where it operates, such that consumers have no choice but to use it even if they hate it. Indicative of this displeasure, last year some 371,000 Comcast customersattempted to cut the cord by canceling their cable packages.

And yet, in so doing, many of these customers discovered: Even if you ditch your cable TV package, if you want to stream video over the internet, you still have to pay an internet service provider for that privilege -- and if Comcast is your internet provider, that means you haven't really cut the cord at all.

One analyst thinks this is a great reason to own Comcast stock today.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

Try to "cut the cord." Just try it -- Comcast dares you

Despite all the worries about cord-cutting in America to date, investment bank Guggenheim Capital argues that Comcast has actually made a "fairly smooth" transition from being primarily a provider of paid TV services to a provider focusing simply on "connectivity" -- which you can think of as selling internet access, regardless of what kind of information traffic flows through that access. And as Guggenheim explains in a note covered on TheFly.com today, Comcast is likely to continue winning market share in broadband connectivity going forward.

The numbers bear this out.

Despite losing nearly 400,000 cable TV subscribers last year, Comcast added 1.35 million broadband customers. And in Q1 of this year, Comcast reported that it lost another 120,000 cable TV subscribers, but gained three times as many broadband internet customers (375,000)!

More broadband customers = more profit

And Guggenheim notes that this "pivot" from cable TV to a broadband internet focus has been good news for Comcast's bottom line.

Last quarter, for example, Comcast's $3.55 billion Q1 profit was up 14% year over year, while the company's free cash flow soared 40% to $4.9 billion. Over the past 12 months, free cash flow now amounts to a whopping $15.5 billion -- 27% more than the company's reported $12.2 billion in GAAP net income.

Guggenheim notes further that Comcast is "showing steady gains" in its nascent wireless phone business, while the company's NBCUniversal properties operate at "a very high level." Indeed, S&P Global Market Intelligence data shows that sales in Comcast's several NBCUniversal businesses climbed a heady 9% in 2018 -- even better than the near-4% growth in revenue from "cable communications."

All of which leads Guggenheim to upgrade Comcast stock to buy with a $52 price target.