New York, July 10, 2026, 15:10 (EDT)
AT&T Inc. NYSE:T traded up 0.6% to $21.17 as of 2:54 p.m. EDT on Friday. The move understates what investors who owned shares before the stock’s ex-dividend date saw. Add in the 27.75-cent dividend those holders picked up, and the one-day total return comes out to about 1.9%. Buyers on Friday did not qualify for the payment.
The math here is straightforward. AT&T closed at $21.04 on Thursday. Take away the dividend, and the ex-dividend marker drops to around $20.76. Shares traded at $21.17, so that’s about 40 cents over the new ex-dividend marker, not just 13 cents above the last close.
AT&T shares fell 7.2% in the recent Starlink-driven telecom selloff, and the company is set to report Q2 results on July 22. The stock trades at about 7.1 times trailing earnings and comes with a 5.25% indicated yield. Price-to-earnings, or P/E, shows share price versus per-share profit. Friday’s bid just marks a valuation level, not a sign that competitive concerns are gone.
Peer names moved too. Verizon Communications Inc. NYSE:VZ also went ex-dividend Friday and posted a return proxy around 2.0%. T-Mobile US Inc. NASDAQ:TMUS climbed 2.6%, with no dividend factor in play. The iShares U.S. Telecommunications ETF (NYSEARCA:IYZ) rose 0.8%, while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust NYSEARCA:SPY added 0.4%. Telecoms look like they’re bouncing, not just AT&T.
| Company | Late price | Raw price move | Dividend going ex | Holder return proxy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AT&T | $21.17 | up 0.6% | $0.2775 | up 1.9% |
| Verizon | $42.40 | up 0.4% | $0.7075 | up 2.0% |
| T-Mobile US | $186.25 | up 2.6% | — | up 2.6% |
The proxy takes the day’s price move, adds back the ex-dividend cash amount, and divides that by the previous close. Numbers are rounded. Prices were taken at about 2:54 p.m. EDT.
New research keeps the issue in the spotlight. Morgan Stanley NYSE:MS analyst Sean Diffley estimates Space Exploration Technologies Corp. NASDAQ:SPCX might put nearly $200 billion into global connectivity capex over the next five years, with around 80% headed for mobile and spectrum. Capex refers to network and asset spending. The bank’s model has 16 million U.S. Starlink broadband subscribers by 2030. SpaceX shares dropped 2.4% on Friday.
Wells Fargo & Co. NYSE:WFC analyst Steven Cahall started AT&T at underweight this week, setting an $18 price target. Cahall wrote that AT&T is the carrier “least likely” to get a Starlink MVNO deal. An MVNO uses another firm’s network for mobile service. He said AT&T’s fiber and wireless bundle might have to pick up more slack. TipRanks
Cash is still a cap on what AT&T can do. The company says it expects at least $18 billion in free cash flow for 2026. That’s after spending on capital projects and some vendor financing. AT&T also wants to spend about $8 billion on buybacks and keep paying its $1.11 yearly dividend. In Q1, free cash flow came in at $2.5 billion, below the $3.1 billion posted last year as capital investment went up.
AT&T’s March filing shows net shares at about 6.97 billion, once treasury stock is taken out of the issued count. The annual payout on common stock is around $7.7 billion. With buybacks included, the cash going to shareholders eats up almost 87% of this year’s $18 billion guidance floor, which leaves a buffer of about $2.3 billion. Total debt was $138.4 billion at March’s end.
| 2026 cash-return bridge | Approx. $ billion | Share of $18 billion FCF floor |
|---|---|---|
| Common dividends | 7.7 | 43% |
| Planned share buybacks | 8.0 | 44% |
| Total cash sent to holders | 15.7 | 87% |
| Unused cash left | 2.3 | 13% |
Numbers are rounded, based on the March 31 net share count, using the low end of AT&T’s free-cash-flow target. Actual buyback and share totals may shift.
AT&T is pitching satellite as an extra rather than a main network. CEO John Stankey said it’s “a great complement to the existing products and services that we offer,” and insists AT&T’s home and mobile networks still have built-in strengths. Investors will weigh that as rivals push faster satellite options and cheaper service. AT&T Investors
The margin is getting tighter. The 10-year Treasury yield hovered at 4.57% on Friday, so AT&T’s stated dividend yield was just 0.7 point higher, not counting the extra risk of holding stock. A miss on cash flow, a jump in network spending, or quicker price drops from Starlink would likely bring buybacks into question first.
The July 22 report comes down to one thing: did cash flow speed up enough to keep the $2.3 billion cushion intact? AT&T’s ex-dividend trading Friday looked firmer than the bare 0.6% move says. But a single session doesn’t answer if AT&T’s seven-times earnings multiple is cheap or a red flag.
Related articles: NYSE:MS
