New York, June 17, 2026, 14:05 (EDT)
- AT&T shares were down 3.8% in afternoon trading. Investors looked at the company’s planned CFO handover.
- Pascal Desroches plans to step down as CFO at the end of the year. Jennifer Biry is set to become CFO starting Jan. 1, 2027.
- Verizon and T-Mobile were down too, showing the selling wasn’t just in AT&T.
AT&T Inc. shares dropped 87 cents to $22.29 on Wednesday. The fall came as the company plans a shuffle in its CFO position. The stock hit a low of $22.28 earlier in the session. The move lagged the wider market, with the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust down nearly 0.1%.
AT&T still needs cash for big 5G and fiber investments as it tries to keep shareholder returns steady. Desroches has been involved in cost cutting, balance sheet work and spending on AT&T’s network, according to Reuters.
AT&T said in a filing late Friday that its CFO Pascal Desroches will retire at the end of the year. Desroches, who serves as senior executive vice president and oversees finance and capital allocation, steps down officially Dec. 31. Biry, named deputy CFO effective July 6, is set to take over as CFO on Jan. 1, 2027.
Biry, 52, was CFO and COO at McAfee before this. The filing showed she worked at AT&T for over two decades in senior finance, sales, and strategy roles, and was CFO of WarnerMedia when it was part of AT&T.
Verizon dropped roughly 2.8%. T-Mobile US slid about 1.8% as the sector moved lower. Pressure wasn’t limited to one company, with telecom stocks trading down as investors kept the competition in mind.
Earnings are next. AT&T plans to release Q2 numbers before the NYSE open on July 22, with a call set for 8:30 a.m. ET.
AT&T’s quarter landed well enough to keep the stock in the defensive-income mix. The company put up first-quarter revenue of $31.5 billion and free cash flow at $2.5 billion, after operating and capital expenses. Net postpaid phone additions hit 294,000, which includes customer signups minus cancellations. Fiber now covers 37.5 million consumer and business locations.
AT&T CEO John Stankey called it the company’s “best first quarter ever” for advanced connectivity internet net adds in April, crediting fiber and wireless bundles as the main drivers. The company kept its 2026 full-year and multi-year outlook unchanged. AT&T Newsroom
But risks aren’t minor here. Oppenheimer’s Timothy Horan downgraded AT&T to Perform and wrote that “broadband subscriber growth and eventually mobile is at risk” as low-Earth-orbit satellite networks move in to offer broadband. If that competition ramps up faster than AT&T expects, the company’s fiber rollout may get hit on price and subscribers. Barron’s
NYSE core trading hours stayed at 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET. The market will shut on Friday, June 19 for Juneteenth, with no trading that day.
