AT&T Stock (NYSE:T)
The share price of AT&T (NYSE:T) has climbed for a second day after an earnings report that was well received due to healthy financials and robust customer counts. The AT&T stock price has risen 2.2%, adding to Thursday’s gain of 7.7%.
Citi and other analysts have praised the company’s more diversified profit margins and increased focus on fiber users. More acclaim for AT&T stock: Truist has raised it to Buy from Hold.
Those results come after “15 years of underperformance, now that it has proved an ability to concentrate on core business as opposed to acquisitions of loosely connected firms at high market values,” as analyst Greg Miller puts it.
Miller says that despite the stock being one of the best performers this year compared to the declining market, it is time to upgrade after more than 15 years because “trends of the past few quarters are increasingly likely to continue to the point where the company is capable of generating $17.8B-plus” of free cash flow in 2023, and $19.6B-plus in 2024 (14% and 15.4% free cash flow yields respectively).
While he acknowledges that dwindling DSL subscriber numbers remain a drag on overall broadband net additions, he does note that fiber already makes up more than half of the total, so DSL will be less of a headwind going forward.
“increasingly evident that we are, in fact, on a trajectory to a $17B-plus 2023 free cash flow and beyond,” the firm said, “meaning the company should be in an increasingly strong position to either return money to shareholders or reinvest in the core business it is proving successful with.”
Despite the positive reception AT&T stock received following its report, experts noted that the company still had some work to do due to a shortfall in free cash flow.
Featured Image- Megapixl @ Luckydoor
Author Shariq Khan 
