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The setup
AT&T is rolling into its Wednesday, July 22 Q2 earnings report with Wall Street doing what Wall Street does best: adjusting the scoreboard before the game starts. Analysts are looking for earnings of 59 cents a share on $31.82 billion in revenue, which would be a step up from last year’s 54 cents a share and $30.85 billion.
The analyst chorus gets louder
This piece reads like a mini-reboot of the AT&T narrative. Scotiabank trimmed its price target to $29.25, Wells Fargo kicked off coverage at Underweight with an $18 target, Barclays cut its target to $24, and Morgan Stanley shaved its target to $25. Oppenheimer also downgraded the stock earlier in June. Translation: the Street isn’t exactly handing out confetti here.
Why investors should care
When analysts keep sanding down expectations right before earnings, it can mean two things: either the bar is getting more realistic, or the crowd is bracing for a stumble. AT&T’s shares were up 1.4% to $22.26 on Tuesday, so the market’s already leaning into the setup a bit.
There’s also a small but relevant side dish here: AT&T, Ericsson, and MediaTek recently wrapped the first North America in-field trial of enhanced mobility features tied to Ericsson’s 5G Advanced Critical IoT subscription. Nice headline, but the real investor event is still the earnings print. That’s where you find out whether the company can turn all the telecom talk into actual numbers.
Big picture: AT&T is entering earnings season with lower expectations and a bunch of analyst fine-tuning. If management beats the trimmed-down bar, the stock gets a shot at relief. If not, well, the Street already brought the umbrella.