Bernstein Keeps $25 AT&T Target After SpaceX Telecom Sell-Off
Bernstein analyst Laurent Yoon kept a Buy rating on AT&T with a $25 price target, in an Oct. 11 update. The Globe and Mail A Buy rating means he expects the stock to beat the market. A price target is where he sees shares heading, usually over about a year.
That $25 target is unchanged from July, when Yoon cut AT&T to $25 from $30. In that same July 13 report, he also cut T-Mobile to $220 from $245. Investor's Business Daily
Yoon had favored AT&T over peers for some time. In January, he named AT&T his top U.S. telecom pick for 2026. Investing.com He tied that call to tougher competition, a warning he first gave the prior September when he said U.S. telecom competition would intensify further in the foreseeable future.
The October reaffirmation followed a sharp fall tied to a possible new national network owner. SpaceX announced a deal to buy a nationwide spectrum portfolio, the airwaves that carry wireless signals. CNBC U.S. and European telecom stocks slid after the deal, with T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T leading losses among S&P 500 stocks. Reuters
On Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, AT&T shares fell 9.9%, Verizon fell 8.8% and T-Mobile fell 13.3%. Barron's Verizon posted its worst single-day performance since 2002. CNBC T-Mobile fell the most of the three.
The broader context here is what a spectrum-backed newcomer does to the old business model. The issue is less next quarter's net adds, or new customers minus those who left. It is whether AT&T can protect pricing power, hold churn steady, and support long-term valuations if a fourth owner builds capacity at national scale. Churn is the share of customers who quit. Keeping a Buy into that fall implies Yoon thinks AT&T's free cash flow, or cash left after running costs and network spending, can handle a tougher path than the market priced on Oct. 9.
Looking at what this means for valuation, the split is telling. The market punished T-Mobile most, then AT&T, then Verizon, despite the same overhang. That order suggests investors are sorting on customer growth risk and vulnerability to lower valuations, not treating the spectrum transfer as an equal hit. The practical question is whether the $25 AT&T target and $220 T-Mobile target from July already reflect a higher cost to win and keep subscribers.
In my view, holding Buy while leaving the target unchanged is a bet that expectations stretched too far. It concedes the July cuts did not fully price entry risk, yet argues the Oct. 9 move overcompensated. That is hard to defend without new work on churn, ARPU trajectory and capex intensity under four national players. ARPU is average revenue per user. Capex intensity is how much must be spent on the network. Until those inputs are reset, $25 reads less as precise math and more as relative preference, with AT&T still favored as the defensive leg.
