AT&T stock down 7.96% on SpaceX cell-site talks

Friday’s AT&T close was $20.93, down $1.81, or 7.96%, from Thursday’s $22.74, not a round 8 percent. The Motley Fool box at 4:00 p.m. ET on 23 October 2026 shows the same three figures. The catalyst is a report of SpaceX talks for at least 80,000 US cell sites. Verizon fell 1.19%, Crown Castle rose 9.06%, and no fetched AT&T filing shows a signed lease.

Wednesday is what that one-day reading misses. On 21 October, before Investor’s Business Daily’s Thursday-night account of a Bloomberg report, AT&T closed at $21.91, down 6.45% from Tuesday’s $23.42. Thursday rose to $22.74, up 3.79%, and Pascal Desroches said the $2.40 adjusted EPS range, versus a prior $2.25 to $2.35, was primarily Mexico held-for-sale depreciation. These closes are Friday’s completed Nasdaq historical prints.

Key facts

• AT&T closed Friday 23 October 2026 at $20.93, down $1.81, or 7.96%, from $22.74, on Nasdaq historical volume of 99,813,650 shares. The info page shows -7.96% and lastSalePrice $20.93, but lastTradeTimestamp reads “Oct 22, 2026.” The historical row dated 23 October is the close used here.
• The Motley Fool on 23 October 2026 showed the same $20.93, down $1.81, or 7.96%, as of 4:00 p.m. ET, and a market cap of $140.99 billion on publicly traded shares only. Source: The Motley Fool, 23 October 2026.
• The Motley Fool wrote that SpaceX is in talks for at least 80,000 U.S. cell sites, according to a Bloomberg report. Investor’s Business Daily, updated 4:54 p.m. ET on 23 October 2026, wrote that the talks include at least Crown Castle and that Bloomberg reported them Thursday night, citing sources. Bloomberg’s own article was not opened.
• Same Friday Nasdaq rows: Verizon $44.66, down 1.19%; T-Mobile $146.54, down 7.71%, the low close of the last 252 sessions in the saved file; Crown Castle $85.97, up 9.06%; American Tower $188.97, up 4.08%; SBA Communications $184.75, up 3.57%.
• The 20-session average of AT&T closes is $23.505 and the 50-session average is $24.7506. Friday sits 10.96% under the first and 15.44% under the second. The prior five-session high was $23.85 on 16 October and the prior five-session low was $21.79 on 21 October. Friday is 12.24% under that high and 3.95% under that low. Source: Nasdaq closes through 23 October 2026.
• The 21 October release: revenue $32.3 billion, up 5.3%; adjusted EPS $0.65 versus $0.54; adjusted EBITDA $12.5 billion, up 5.4%; free cash flow $5.0 billion versus $4.9 billion; adjusted EPS outlook in the $2.40 range for 2026. Source: AT&T release, 21 October 2026.
• Total debt was $159.6 billion and net debt was $149.8 billion. The release ties the sequential increase to closing the EchoStar deal. Desroches called it a $23 billion spectrum purchase at the end of July and said net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 3.13 times, up from 2.68 times. Source: LSEG transcript, 21 October 2026.
• Stankey said, “I wouldn’t over rotate on what I would call one carrier of low band spectrum.” The 21 October 8-K, accession 0000732717-26-000370, is the earnings package and does not describe a lease for 80,000 sites. Source: SEC 8-K index, 21 October 2026.

Friday was 7.96 percent, and Wednesday had already broken

$20.93 divided by $22.74, minus one, is -7.9595%, which rounds to the info page’s -7.96%. The historical bar is open $21.74, high $22.21, low $20.92, close $20.93, volume 99,813,650. Info volume is 99,813,722.

AT&T lists on the NYSE. This file is Nasdaq’s historical table. “About 8 percent” only restates the 7.96% close. It is not a second official print.

24/7 Wall St. headlined a morning tape: AT&T down 4%, Verizon down 3%, and T-Mobile down 5% to $150.74 during morning trading. The same page later shows the closing widgets, AT&T $20.93 and T-Mobile $146.54. The morning $150.74 is $4.20 above T-Mobile’s close. Those morning percents are not the session.

Friday opened 4.40% under Thursday’s close; the $22.21 high stayed 2.33% under $22.74, so the session never got back to Thursday. The $20.92 low is one cent under the close and 8.00% under Thursday on ($22.74 minus $20.92) divided by $22.74. That 8.00% belongs to the low; the close is 7.96%. Closes from 16 October ran $23.44, $23.20, $23.42, $21.91, $22.74, and $20.93, and the week was down 10.71%.

Friday volume of 99,813,650 was 1.83 times Thursday’s 54,447,180, and 2.25 times the 44.4 million average The Motley Fool printed. Heavier rows exist: 150,534,900 shares on 9 October, when the close fell 10.82% from $24.87 to $22.18, and 187,291,400 shares on 22 July 2026. The 9 October move is the larger down close in the last 30 sessions, and the cell-site pages do not explain it. ($1.81 divided by $20.93) times the Fool market cap of $140.99 billion is $12.19 billion, an illustration of that market-cap figure, not a share count.

Who is exposed when the landlords rise and Verizon does not

Investor’s Business Daily wrote that the carriers fell and that Crown Castle and American Tower jumped, with SpaceX in talks with at least Crown Castle. A signed lease would not have to send tenants and landlords this far apart. The saved closes did.

T-Mobile’s $146.54 is the low close of its last 252 sessions, 33.99% under the window high of $221.98 on 24 February 2026. AT&T’s $20.93 is not that kind of low. The low close in its last 252 sessions is $20.48 on 1 July 2026. Friday is $0.45, or 2.20%, above it, and 28.08% under the window high of $29.10 on 27 March 2026.

Verizon’s 1.19% drop, from $45.20 to $44.66, is not its 252-session low of $38.40 on 23 October 2025. Crown Castle’s $85.97 is under the $94.49 close on 5 June 2026, so Friday is not a high since June. American Tower and SBA Communications also closed under their 252-session highs, $194.12 and $223.75.

The quarter’s customers are a different exposure. The release counts 379,000 postpaid phone net adds, churn of 0.92%, and 769,000 Advanced Connectivity internet net adds, including 442,000 fiber and 327,000 fixed wireless, plus about 350,000 more converged relationships. Fiber locations are above 39 million, with a company track for over 40 million by the end of 2026 and more than 60 million by the end of 2030.

Desroches gave a second set: 696,000 Advanced Home internet net adds, including 416,000 AT&T Fiber and 280,000 Internet Air. The labels differ, so the two fiber counts should not be forced into one gap.

Starlink splits the same way. MarketBeat’s recap of the 20 October call says Starlink added 1.6 million consumer subscribers, to 13.6 million, and that Bret Johnsen, chief financial officer, tied monthly average revenue per user of $69, up 5% sequentially, to mix. The Motley Fool says Gwynne Shotwell said Starlink Mobile monthly users jumped 37% to over 22 million. Those are not one tally; FinanceFeeds already covered third-quarter revenue of $14.6 billion.

What the tape and the 21 October documents show

Each move is Friday’s close divided by the 22 October close, minus one, rounded to two decimals. Highs and lows in that column are closing prices.

Accession 0000732717-26-000370, CIK 0000732717, is the 8-K filed 21 October 2026. The index lists earnings exhibits, including exhibit t-3q2026exhibit991. The release is datelined Dallas that day, and the call was 8:30 a.m. ET. The saved atom does not show a later 8-K for 80,000 cell sites; the fetched earnings 8-K is not a tower lease.

What Stankey, Desroches, and Shotwell actually said

“We are growing valuable customer relationships as more homes and businesses choose AT&T for all their advanced connectivity needs across both internet and on-the-go wireless,” said John Stankey, chairman and chief executive, in the 21 October release. The sentence does not mention SpaceX or cell sites. SDxCentral wrote the same day that prepared remarks did not name SpaceX or Starlink.

IBD puts the Bloomberg report on Thursday night, so the call was answering spectrum, not that report. The LSEG transcript spells “low band” as two words.

“It’s not something that gets done overnight. I wouldn’t over rotate on what I would call one carrier of low band spectrum,” Stankey said.

“In our scaled network, we run, depending on the metro, somewhere between six to eight carriers of low band spectrum.” Spectrum “is not just housed on macro antenna sites. It exists on every indoor building system and high-rises and hospitals and stadiums.”

In Chicago, “somewhere between 40% to 45% of the traffic on any given day is traffic that’s originated from inside of a building.” He added that “98% of the traffic is where we’ve already built and where we already have capabilities,” and that LEO “might help us at the edges of our network.”

Desroches, chief financial officer, said: “For the full year, we now expect adjusted EPS in the $2.40 range compared to our prior outlook of $2.25 to $2.35, primarily because of lower depreciation expense related to held-for-sale accounting for AT&T Mexico.” Adjusted EPS of $0.65 was up 20% from $0.54, “driven primarily by growth in adjusted EBITDA and lower depreciation expense.” The margin was 38.7%, which he called the highest third-quarter consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin since the advanced-connectivity refocus. He located the raise in depreciation, not in a demand jump.

The Motley Fool wrote on 23 October that Gwynne Shotwell, chief operating officer, said Starlink Mobile’s monthly users jumped 37% to over 22 million. No SpaceX transcript PDF was opened here, so that line stays with The Motley Fool. MarketBeat recap, not a verbatim transcript, puts service activation on the new spectrum in early 2028, after Mobile V2 satellites on Starship in 2027, and says Shotwell said the FCC approval covers 15,000 Mobile V2 satellites. Bret Johnsen’s reported line, “continued momentum in the connectivity business,” is not an 80,000-site confirmation.

24/7 Wall St. wrote that Verizon chief executive Dan Schulman stated, “It is basically not possible because of physics, not because of execution but because of physics for satellite to effectively compete against the terrestrial network in either mobility or broadband in urban and suburban geographies.” Verizon’s 1.19% close did not trade as if that argument had already lost.

Simone Cortesi wrote at 19:01 UTC on 24 October 2026, “Nothing is signed and no company has confirmed the talks.” His rounded percents are looser than the Nasdaq files, though his T-Mobile low matches the saved 252-session window. The $28 billion and $7 billion totals in his note are not in those files. Post: Simone Cortesi on X.

Alex Thirkield wrote at 10:19 UTC on 25 October that the 22 million monthly users were “all via partner carriers like T-Mobile.” That clause is his post, not a MarketBeat quotation. Post: Alex Thirkield on X. Friday’s FinanceFeeds note on Elon Musk’s net worth and the cell-tower report is a separate piece.

Two spectrum deals, and the debt line is only one of them

EchoStar is the purchase AT&T has closed. Net debt of $149.8 billion and total debt of $159.6 billion rose sequentially for that reason, the release says. Desroches said the 3.13 times ratio, up from 2.68 times, reflects the $23 billion of EchoStar spectrum licenses bought at the end of July. He still points to a 2.5 times range during 2029, using EBITDA growth, debt repayment, and 2027 cash from a fiber joint venture and the Mexico sale.

On 13 October 2026 AT&T agreed to sell the Mexico wireless business to Grupo Televisa and Fintech Holdings. The non-cash impairment was $2.6 billion, and Desroches said a roughly $800 million separations charge hits cash mainly in 2027. Diluted EPS was $0.13, versus $1.29. Adjusted EPS was $0.65; the $2.40 range is that adjusted path.

SDxCentral on 21 October described a different deal: SpaceX buying up to 14 MHz of 800 MHz spectrum from Grain Management for a reported $8 billion. The buyer is SpaceX. An earlier FinanceFeeds note covered that reported 800 MHz agreement.

The same SDxCentral article says AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon recently signed a satellite-focused spectrum-pooling joint venture. That reported venture is not, in the pages opened here, the 80,000-site lease. It also does not force the three stocks to move together. They did not.

Cash plans were already public on Wednesday. The quarter returned about $4.8 billion, including $2.8 billion of buybacks, and Desroches said year-to-date buybacks were over $7 billion, toward about $10 billion in 2026. The outlook keeps a $1.11 annualized dividend, capital investment of $23 billion to $24 billion in 2026, and free cash flow of $18 billion or more in 2026. He put fourth-quarter free cash flow near $6 billion, versus $4.2 billion a year earlier, and flagged about $100 million of unfavorable vendor settlements, mostly in the legacy segment.

Advanced Connectivity service revenue was $23.9 billion, up 6.1%. None of that is rent on 80,000 sites. The FinanceFeeds report on the SpaceX third-quarter call already covered that call.

What happens next

Three dates follow from pages already fetched. None is a price target.

Early next year, Desroches said the fourth-quarter report will add color on free cash flow of $19 billion or more in 2027. The $2.40 range and the 2026 cash-flow guide predate IBD’s Thursday-night account. If that report still has no lease, Friday’s 7.96% was a reaction to talks. If a lease appears, it has to sit beside 2026 capital investment of $23 billion to $24 billion.

Early 2028 is MarketBeat’s reported target for service on the new spectrum, after Mobile V2 satellites on Starship in 2027 and Shotwell’s reported FCC approval for 15,000 of them. Stankey’s chain, six to eight low-band carriers and indoor systems, says that is when an indoor or churn effect could start. Friday skipped the unsigned middle. Churn of 0.92% and 379,000 postpaid phone net adds are the marks a later service would have to move.

By the end of 2026 the release still says fiber locations should pass 40 million, from more than 39 million now. A miss would be a fiber fact from AT&T’s own release, not evidence that an unsigned tower story redrew the map.

Frequently asked questions

What did the official AT&T close do on Friday, and what part of the SpaceX cell-site report is the tape not pricing the same way?

The official close was $20.93, down $1.81, or 7.96%, and the names did not trade as one print. AT&T fell 7.96% and T-Mobile fell 7.71%, while Verizon fell 1.19% and Crown Castle rose 9.06%. The 80,000-site figure, as The Motley Fool and Investor’s Business Daily attribute it to Bloomberg, is talks. The 21 October release shows no signed lease, and Wednesday’s 6.45% drop came first.

Did AT&T stock hit a 252-session closing low?

No. Friday’s $20.93 is $0.45, or 2.20%, above the $20.48 close on 1 July 2026, the low close in the last 252 sessions of the saved file. T-Mobile’s $146.54 is that window’s low for TMUS. Volume of 99,813,650 was also below 22 July’s 187,291,400 shares and below 9 October, when the close fell 10.82% to $22.18.

What did John Stankey say about one carrier of spectrum?

On the 21 October call he said he would not over rotate on one carrier of low band spectrum. A scaled network, he said, runs six to eight of those carriers, depending on the metro. He put 40% to 45% of a Chicago day’s traffic inside buildings, and 98% of traffic where AT&T has already built. The call was 8:30 a.m. ET Wednesday, before IBD’s Thursday-night report.

Why did the adjusted earnings outlook move to the $2.40 range?

Pascal Desroches said adjusted EPS is now in the $2.40 range, versus a prior $2.25 to $2.35, primarily because of lower depreciation from held-for-sale accounting for AT&T Mexico. The release dates the sale agreement to 13 October 2026 and records a $2.6 billion non-cash impairment. He called it an accounting effect, and he said it on Wednesday.

Are the EchoStar purchase and the reported Grain spectrum deal the same contract?

No. Desroches described a $23 billion AT&T purchase of EchoStar spectrum at the end of July, and the release ties net debt of $149.8 billion to that closing. SDxCentral on 21 October describes a reported SpaceX purchase of up to 14 MHz of 800 MHz spectrum from Grain Management for a reported $8 billion. The buyer in that sentence is not AT&T.

What are the next dated tests, without a price target?

Desroches pointed to the fourth-quarter report early next year for more on 2027 free cash flow of $19 billion or more. MarketBeat’s recap targets spectrum service activation in early 2028, after Mobile V2 satellites on Starship in 2027. The release keeps over 40 million fiber locations by the end of 2026. Friday did not print a signed lease for 80,000 sites.

This is not financial advice.