AT&T stock: buy or sell?
Updated on:
September 20th, 2019
4
AT&T Inc. provides communications and digital entertainment services. The company operates through four segments: Business Solutions, Entertainment Group, Consumer Mobility, and International.
Should I buy AT&T stock?
Even if you are a experienced or a novel trader, best trading results come from using an investing strategy that never leaves to random or subjective opinions when is the best moment to buy or sell stocks. Having a trading plan helps to make decisions easier, quicker and with less hesitations. At Stocks2.com, we use very simple but trusted and powerful trend following trading strategies. Simple things usually work the best.Currently, AT&T stock doesn't match any of these trading strategies, so our recommendation is not to buy.
| Buy setup | Elegible |
|---|---|
| New all-time high | No |
| New 52 week high | No |
| Price crossing up 200d MA | No |
| 100d MA crossing up 200d MA | No |
Is AT&T stock a buy?
Everyday, hundreds of stock ratings are published by financial analysts to indicate a particular stock's attractiveness.
At Stocks2.com, we detected 13 ratings published for T stock in the last 30 days. The general sentiment of these ratings is bullish for T stock, with 7 positive ratings.| Date | Analyst / Broker | Previous rating | Current rating |
| 2019-9-9 | BMO Capital Markets | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-9-18 | DZ Bank | Buy | Hold |
| 2019-9-10 | Citigroup | Reduce | Buy |
| 2019-9-10 | Barclays | Buy | Equal Weight |
| 2019-8-6 | Desjardins | Buy | Average |
| 2019-8-1 | Morgan Stanley | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-7-25 | Raymond James | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-7-25 | Credit Suisse Group | Underperform | Neutral |
| 2019-7-25 | Cowen | n/a | Outperform |
| 2019-6-24 | Bank of America | n/a | Buy |
| 2019-4-5 | Desjardins | Buy | Average |
| 2019-3-15 | Raymond James | Market Perform | Outperform |
| 2019-1-31 | Cowen | n/a | Buy |
AT&T stock analysis
Daily outlook
AT&T closed today at $37.91 and escalated a more than good 2.05%.
AT&T shares escalated 2.05% to $37.91 today. T shows a short term strength with several rising tops and rising bottoms. In the very short term, on Sep/18 it marked a new bottom at $36.49 that should act a support if AT&T starts a trading flat base in the range of $36.49 - $38.75 If AT&T breakouts over $38.75 with average or higher volume, this would be a signal that the uptrend resumes. On May, SMA100d and SMA200d crossed up triggering a rise of 19.21%. On May T price bounced up over the SMA of 200 days demonstrating to be a significant support for this stock. On September 11th, T hit a new all time high, pushing higher than on September/9 tops. Check different trading setups that use ATHs as triggers.
Weekly outlook
Shares of AT&T stayed stable a tight 0.00% this week. This week was the 4th green week in a row.
Not so far away is the last all-time high AT&T marked last week. AT&T stock is trading in the range of its last top and last bottom. Loosing would mean breaking the current uptrend. Breakdowns under last bottom are selling point signals for some trading strategies. Since SMA20d and SMA40w crossed up by mid May, T price climbed $7.75 per share (25.70%). By mid March T price bounced up over the SMA of 40 weeks that acted as support stopping new slides.
AT&T stock price history
AT&T stock went public on November 21st, 1983 with a price of $0.861. Since then, T stock surged a 4,308.10%, with a yearly average of 123.10%. If you had invested right after T's IPO a $1,000 in AT&T stock in 1983, it would worth $43,081.00 today.
1: Adjusted price after possible price splits or reverse-splits.
AT&T stock historical price chart
T stock reached all-time highs on Sep/11 with a price of $38.75.
AT&T stock price target is $41.10
Nobody can reliably foresee how stock prices may evolve in the future. However, financial institutions invest time and resources to provide the most accurated estimations to help investors to make their decisions. You should not follow the analysts' T stock price predictions in the hope that they will be met as they may be wrong and not met. For the last 30 days we found 10 price forecasts for AT&T stock:| Date | Analyst / Broker | Action | Previous target | Current target | Diff |
| 2019-9-18 | DZ Bank | Reiterates | n/a | $38.00 | - |
| 2019-9-10 | Citigroup | Raises Target | $37.00 | $42.00 | 13.5% |
| 2019-9-10 | Barclays | Raises Target | $31.00 | $35.00 | 12.9% |
| 2019-8-6 | Desjardins | Reiterates | n/a | $55.50 | - |
| 2019-8-1 | Morgan Stanley | Reiterates | n/a | $37.00 | - |
| 2019-7-25 | Raymond James | Raises Target | $34.00 | $35.00 | 2.9% |
| 2019-7-25 | Cowen | Reiterates | $34.00 | $40.00 | 17.6% |
| 2019-6-24 | Bank of America | Reiterates | n/a | $37.00 | - |
| 2019-4-5 | Desjardins | Reiterates | n/a | $56.50 | - |
| 2019-1-31 | Cowen | Reiterates | n/a | $35.00 | - |
| (in average) | $34.00 | $41.10 | 21.0% |
Financials and fundamental analysis
Earnings date and Earnings per Share
After publishing its last earnings report on April, AT&T . As soon as we get its actual EPS from the earnings report, we will update this review.| Quarter | Reporting date | Estimated EPS | Actual EPS | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | - | n/a | 0.67 | n/a |
| 2017-Q3 | 2017-10-24 | 0.75 | 0.74 | -1.3% |
| 2017-Q4 | 2018-01-31 | 0.65 | 0.78 | 20.0% |
| 2018-Q1 | 2018-04-25 | 0.87 | 0.85 | -2.3% |
| 2018-Q2 | 2018-07-24 | 0.85 | 0.91 | 7.1% |
| 2018-Q3 | 2018-10-24 | 0.93 | 0.9 | -3.2% |
| 2018-Q4 | 2019-01-30 | 0.85 | 0.86 | 1.2% |
| 2019-Q1 | 2019-04-24 | 0.86 | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q2 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
| 2019-Q3 | - | n/a | n/a | n/a |
Annual financial results
Compared to 2017, last anual revenues report draw a shining increase of 6.36% to $170,756.00 M dollars. When comparing 2018 vs 2017, on the other hand, profit margin (that is, the net income divided by revenues) fell a -7.00% to 11.34%. AT&T fiscal year ends in December, and to evaluate its evolution since then, we estimate annual sales and income figures by adding results from the last 4 quarters. This is called TTM (or Twelve Trailing Months). So, AT&T TTM sales up to March 2019 were $177,545.00 and income $18,804.00 million USD. If we compare this TTM figures with the last reported annuality, we can esteem AT&T business evolution since December 2018: Annual turnover up to March, compared to lastest yearly report, inched a beatiful 3.98%. In contrary, profit margin (net income/revenues) remained stable at 11.34%.| Year | Sales | YoY | Income/(margin) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | $128,750 M | - | $18,250 M14.2% | - |
| 2014 | $132,447 M | 2.87% | $6,224 M4.7% | -65.90% |
| 2015 | $146,801 M | 10.84% | $13,345 M9.1% | 114.41% |
| 2016 | $163,786 M | 11.57% | $12,976 M7.9% | -2.77% |
| 2017 | $160,546 M | -1.98% | $29,450 M18.3% | 126.96% |
| 2018 | $170,756 M | 6.36% | $19,370 M11.3% | -34.23% |
| TTM | $177,545 M | 3.98% | $18,804 M10.6% | -2.92% |
Quarterly financial results
AT&T reported $44,827.00 million in sales for 2019-Q1, a -6.60% decline compared to previous quarter. Reported quarter earnings marked $4,096.00 M with a profit margin of 9.14%. Profit margin stayed constant a -0.98% compared to previous quarter when profit margin was 10.12%. When comparing turnover to same quarter last year, AT&T sales marked an extraordinary growth and rocketed a 17.85%.| Quarter | Sales1 | QoQ2 | Income1/(margin) | QoQ2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017-Q2 | $39,840 M | - | $3,920 M9.8% | - |
| 2017-Q3 | $39,670 M | -0.43% | $3,030 M7.6% | -22.70% |
| 2017-Q4 | $41,676 M | 5.06% | $19,037 M45.7% | 528.28% |
| 2018-Q1 | $38,038 M | -8.73% | $4,662 M12.3% | -75.51% |
| 2018-Q2 | $38,986 M | 2.49% | $5,132 M13.2% | 10.08% |
| 2018-Q3 | $45,739 M | 17.32% | $4,718 M10.3% | -8.07% |
| 2018-Q4 | $47,993 M | 4.93% | $4,858 M10.1% | 2.97% |
| 2019-Q1 | $44,827 M | -6.60% | $4,096 M9.1% | -15.69% |
AT&T ownership
When you are planning to buy shares of a company, it's worth to check its ownership structure.AT&T shares owned by insiders (that is, founders, CEO, CTO, main executives or other management staff) currently counts a 0.07% of all shares.
In case of AT&T stock, 55.44% of its shares are held by institutions (mutual funds, pension funds, big banks and other large financial institutions). Bearish positions for T stock account 0.00%, no big difference from last month.
The following table compares ownership indicators for other stocks related to AT&T:
| T | AMX | CMCSA | CTL | DIS | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | $277.1 B | $49.8 B | $211.9 B | $13.6 B | $239.9 B |
| Total shares | 7,310.0 M | 3,300.0 M | 4,540.0 M | 1,090.0 M | 1,800.0 M |
| Float shares | 7,300.0 M | 1,520.0 M | 4,500.0 M | 985.1 M | 1,800.0 M |
| - Institutional holdings (%) | 55.4% | 11.3% | 84.7% | 75.2% | 54.8% |
| - Insider holdings (%) | 0.1% | 0.0% | 0.7% | 0.8% | 0.2% |
| Shares in short selling | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
AT&T summary
| Friday, September 20th, 2019 | |
|---|---|
| Open | $37.30 |
| Close | $37.91 |
| Day range | $37.18 - $38.01 |
| Previous close | $37.15 |
| Session gain | 2.05% |
| Average true range | $0.76 |
| 50d mov avg | $34.99 |
| 100d mov avg | $33.32 |
| 200d mov avg | $31.44 |
| Daily pattern | lb03a |
| Weekly pattern | lt06a |
AT&T performance
Stocks performance is always measured in comparision to the market or competitors and related stocks in the same industry. In the following table, we compare AT&T to America Movil, S.A.B. de, Comcast, CenturyLink, Disney, Shenandoah Telecommunications, Telephone and Data Systems, T-Mobile US, United States Cellular and Verizon Communications:| Stock | 3m | 6m | 12m |
|---|---|---|---|
| TAT&T | 18.58% | 25.82% | 19.40% |
| AMXAmerica Movil, S.... | 0.67% | 3.28% | -6.33% |
| CMCSAComcast | 7.68% | 19.51% | 25.79% |
| CTLCenturyLink | 12.89% | 7.65% | -39.92% |
| DISDisney | -4.37% | 23.91% | 22.41% |
| SHENShenandoah Teleco... | -19.23% | -27.53% | -14.23% |
| TDSTelephone and Dat... | -19.61% | -16.48% | -13.09% |
| TMUST-Mobile US | 6.46% | 12.09% | 16.68% |
| USMUnited States Cel... | -23.11% | -20.45% | -16.31% |
| VZVerizon Communica... | 5.44% | 2.97% | 15.52% |
AT&T competitors
One check before trading any stock is to have a look a list of its competitors, in this case for AT&T. We picked 9 companies as AT&T competitors as they are in the same industry or have similar market objectives.- America Movil, S.A.B. de (AMX)
- Comcast (CMCSA)
- CenturyLink (CTL)
- Disney (DIS)
- Shenandoah Telecommunications (SHEN)
- Telephone and Data Systems (TDS)
- T-Mobile US (TMUS)
- United States Cellular (USM)
- Verizon Communications (VZ)
Latest AT&T stock news
- InvestorPlace3 Big Reasons to Buy AT&T Stock NowAugust 1, 2019
- Seeking AlphaAT&T: On Track To Achieve Its GoalsJuly 30, 2019
- InvestorPlaceAT&T TV Now: DirecTV Now Gets a New NameJuly 30, 2019
- Seeking AlphaAT&T: A Look At The 2 Key MetricsJuly 26, 2019
- Seeking AlphaAT&T - Value Over VolumeJuly 26, 2019