NEW YORK, December 30, 2025, 14:35 ET — Regular session
- AT&T shares edged higher in afternoon trading as Wall Street stayed muted into year-end.
- Investors focused on rate expectations and sector rotation with Fed minutes due later in the session.
- Attention is shifting to AT&T’s Jan. 28 quarterly report for fresh signals on 2026 demand.
AT&T Inc shares were up 0.1% at $24.80 in afternoon trade on Tuesday, hovering near the top of a tight day range as the broader market struggled for direction. The stock traded between $24.75 and $24.85.
The move matters because income-heavy telecom stocks often trade with interest-rate expectations at year-end, when many investors rebalance portfolios. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose 1.8 basis points — a basis point is 0.01 percentage point — to 4.134%, and traders were awaiting the Federal Reserve’s meeting minutes later in the session.
Communication services was among the stronger pockets of the S&P 500 on Tuesday, helped by gains in Meta Platforms after it said it would acquire AI startup Manus. “It’s just a healthy rebalancing of allocations more so than an emotionally driven sell-off,” said Mark Hackett, chief market strategist at Nationwide. Reuters
AT&T’s peers were also modestly higher. Verizon rose 0.5% to $40.68 and T-Mobile gained 0.3% to $203.86.
For investors, the near-term question is whether telecoms can keep holding up as a defensive pocket if bond yields keep drifting higher. The group’s steady cash flows can look less attractive when Treasuries offer more yield.
AT&T also gave investors fresh color on one of its longer-dated growth bets: satellite connectivity. In a company blog post on Monday, AT&T said it has brought its fourth ground gateway online for satellite service and is working with AST SpaceMobile, with plans to offer a beta satellite service to a select group of customers and FirstNet public-safety users in the first half of 2026.
The next scheduled catalyst is earnings. AT&T is set to report fourth-quarter 2025 results and host a conference call on Jan. 28, 2026, according to its investor relations calendar.
Investors typically focus on wireless subscriber additions — particularly postpaid customers, who pay after using service — as a gauge of demand and pricing power. Analysts also track fiber net adds and churn, an industry term for customer losses.
Free cash flow, the cash left after operating costs and capital investment, will be another key metric. AT&T has been spending heavily on its network, and any shift in 2026 capital spending expectations can move the stock.
In the near term, traders are watching whether the shares can hold above $24.75, Tuesday’s intraday low, with $25 acting as a psychological level near recent trade. Thin holiday volume can exaggerate moves in either direction.
Beyond Tuesday’s Fed minutes, investors expect volatility to pick up as normal trading resumes in early January and positioning resets after year-end. For AT&T, attention then turns quickly to Jan. 28 for a clearer read on subscriber trends and management’s outlook for 2026.
