What AT&T Is, and What Happened
AT&T is mainly a wireless and fiber company. It earns most of its money from monthly phone plans and home internet, then reinvests heavily in its network. The stock pays $1.11 a year in dividends ($0.2775 a quarter). That rate hasn't changed since the 2022 cut that came with the WarnerMedia spin-off.
U.S. wireless is a mature, slow-growth, debt-heavy business with three national carriers. All three are spending heavily on spectrum and fiber, and satellite-to-phone service has become a real competitive factor.
After the close on Thursday, October 8, SpaceX agreed to buy a nationwide 800 MHz low-band license portfolio of “up to 14 megahertz of paired spectrum” from Grain Management to support Starlink Mobile. SpaceX didn't disclose the price; it has been reported at about $8 billion. The deal needs FCC approval, and there is no closing timeline. SpaceX said the deal “addresses one of the key remaining technical gaps that will pave the way for Starlink Mobile to become a major mobile carrier in the US.”
On Friday, October 9, the carriers had their worst days in decades:
- T: −9.81%, its worst day since 2000
- VZ: −8.75%, its worst since 2002
- TMUS: −13.27%, its worst since 2013
T and VZ both went ex-dividend that same day, so a small part of the drop was just the dividend coming out of the price. For AT&T, that was about one percentage point.
At the October 12 close, T traded at $22.49, up 1.40% on the day. Its 52-week range is $19.89 to $29.44.
What the 1-Year Chart Shows
The chart above compares one-year total returns:
- VZ: +14.7%
- T: −8.8%
- TMUS: −32.2%
- SPY (S&P 500, for context): +20.4%
None of the three kept up with the S&P 500. The news didn't hit stocks that had been doing well. T was already negative for the year, and T-Mobile was already the weakest of the three before October 9. Verizon is the only one still up over 12 months, even after its own 8.75% drop.
So the chart doesn't show one carrier singled out. It shows the whole group being repriced for the same new risk, with T-Mobile losing the most.
Performance and yield figures are historical and may change. Total return includes price movement and distributions where available. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Yield is not the same as total return.
