SpaceX Starlink Threat Drags AT&T and Verizon to Worst Week
AT&T stock logged its worst week in years as SpaceX's Starlink rattles telecom investors. Verizon shares fell too.
If you're holding AT&T or Verizon right now, this week stung. Both telecom giants saw their shares slide hard, with AT&T posting its worst weekly performance in years — and the culprit isn't a bad earnings report or a rate hike. It's Elon Musk's Starlink.
SpaceX's satellite internet service has been looming over traditional telecoms for a while, but something shifted this week to send the fear trade into overdrive. Investors are waking up to the real possibility that Starlink isn't just a rural broadband play anymore — it's a direct competitive threat to the bread-and-butter wireless and home internet business that AT&T and Verizon depend on.
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That's a serious problem for income investors who've parked money in these names for their fat dividends and steady cash flows. If Starlink starts peeling away customers — especially in underserved markets where AT&T and Verizon have pricing power — the growth story gets a lot harder to tell. The market is repricing that risk right now, and it's not pretty.
The timing matters too. Both stocks had been holding up reasonably well in a choppy tape, which means this week's selloff isn't just sector rotation noise. This looks like a genuine sentiment shift around the long-term competitive moat of legacy telecom. Traders should watch whether these names find support or keep sliding as Starlink news flow continues.
The bottom line: the Starlink threat just got priced in a little more. Whether it's fully priced in is the multi-billion-dollar question. Continue reading at MarketWatch.com.
