AT&T Stock Posts Largest Weekly Outperformance Versus S&P 500 In 25 Years: Wall Street Hikes Price Targets

AT&T stock gained 10.64% last week, outperforming benchmark S&P 500 index by more than 11 percentage points, which is the largest weekly performance in 25 years, as per Barchart.

• The strong rally comes after the telecom giant posted strong second-quarter earnings.
• Wolfe Research upgraded AT&T to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Peer Perform’ and assigned a $29 price target, citing the company's "stable and better than expected" Q2 unit economics. 
• Wells Fargo also raised its price target on the telecom stock to $20 from $18 while maintaining an ‘Underweight’ rating. 

AT&T Inc. (T) stock gained 10.64% last week following its strong second-quarter (Q2) earnings results, outperforming the benchmark S&P 500 index, which lost about 0.61%, by more than 11 percentage points. 

According to Barchart, this is the largest weekly outperformance for T stock in a quarter of a century. 

While the company’s adjusted earnings of $0.65 per share for Q2 exceeded Wall Street estimates, revenue of $31.6 billion came in just below the consensus forecast of $31.8 billion.

However, beyond the headline numbers, AT&T also generated $4.7 billion in free cash flow, exceeding its own guidance range, returned $4.1 billion to shareholders, and demonstrated strong growth across its business.

T Stock: Wall Street Stance

Wolfe Research upgraded AT&T to ‘Outperform’ from ‘Peer Perform’ and assigned a $29 price target, citing the company's "stable and better than expected" Q2 unit economics. While the brokerage said concerns over competition from Starlink Mobile are likely to remain an overhang on the stock, it believes the current valuation does not fully reflect AT&T's earnings potential through 2028 and expects the company's fundamentals to continue improving.

Wells Fargo also raised its price target on the telecom stock to $20 from $18 while maintaining an ‘Underweight’ rating. The firm said AT&T's execution in wireless and convergence has reduced risks to its 2026 guidance and expects the company's planned share buyback in 2026 to be larger than previously anticipated.

Morgan Stanley joined the bulls, increasing its price target on AT&T to $27 from $25 and reiterating its ‘Overweight’ rating. Analyst Sean Diffley said the company's strong performance in both wireless and fibre demonstrates it is "executing well" despite a highly competitive communications market.

What Does Retail Think About AT&T?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around T stock was ‘neutral’ at the time of writing amid ‘high’ message volume. 

One user said, “$T get in now.”

Another user said, “$T It definitely paid off to keep buying the deep discount.  Collecting more dividends was nice too.”

A third user said, “$T $30 in bound.”

T stock is down nearly 2% in 2026. 

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com<