Strativest CapitalSTRATIVEST RESEARCH
Independent research · Est. October 2026
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Stock X-Ray · Communication Services · S&P 500 Full Coverage — Phase 1

AT&T (T)

X-Ray dated Oct 28, 2026 · Share price as of Oct 28, 2026 intraday, when the valuation snapshot was captured · Financials from SEC filings (EDGAR) · Valuation multiples from a labelled secondary source
The verdict — valuation label: FAIRLY PRICED

Forward P/E is 8.25x against a peer median of 8.43x, a ratio of 0.98x — inside the 0.90–1.15 fair range — with trailing P/E 11.24x and PEG 0.79. Latest-quarter revenue grew 5.3% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), above the shrinking cluster pace. Delivered demand check: the Telecom & cable group's median growth was -1.2% year over year — demand falling, while this company still grew.

8.2×
Forward P/E — price vs next year’s expected earnings (secondary source)
8.4×
Peer median forward P/E — closest comparable companies
11.2×
Trailing P/E — price vs the last twelve months of earnings
1.1×
Price / sales

What would change this label: Move to UNDERVALUED if the forward P/E compresses to about 7.6x or below (0.90x the peer median) at unchanged estimates, with revenue growth staying at or above 5% year over year. Move to OVERVALUED if the forward P/E rises above about 9.7x (1.15x the peer median) without a matching rise in growth, or if revenue growth falls below 0% year over year while the multiple stays above 8.4x.

In simple words

AT&T sells phone and internet services to households and businesses. Its shares trade at about 8 times expected earnings, about the same as similar telecom companies, while its sales grew about 5% even as the wider group shrank slightly. That makes the price look fair — neither a clear bargain nor expensive.

Words we use, in plain English: P/E ratio — the share price divided by earnings per share; how many dollars you pay for one dollar of yearly profit. Forward P/E — the same, using next year’s expected earnings. Free cash flow — cash a company has left after running the business and buying equipment. TTM — the last twelve months. Drawdown — the worst fall from a peak to the low after it.
The share price vs the market — six years
AT&T (T)S&P 500 (SPY)
46931401862332021202220232024202520262020-09-012026-10-27

Both lines start at 100 on 2020-09-01. Over the full window AT&T returned -9.20% and the S&P 500 +118.28% (price returns; dividends not reinvested). Worst peak-to-trough fall for AT&T: -47.3% (2021-05-10 to 2023-07-18). Source: Nasdaq official daily history.

What the label rests on

Forward P/E is 8.25x against a peer median of 8.43x, a ratio of 0.98x — inside the 0.90–1.15 fair range — with trailing P/E 11.24x and PEG 0.79. Latest-quarter revenue grew 5.3% year over year (PRIMARY, EDGAR), above the shrinking cluster pace. Delivered demand check: the Telecom & cable group's median growth was -1.2% year over year — demand falling, while this company still grew. The company’s forward P/E is 8.2× against a peer median of 8.4×. Its own history: UNVERIFIED — no sourced range available. Sector demand read: Delivered demand check: the Telecom & cable group's median latest-quarter revenue growth was -1.2% year over year (SEC filings) — demand falling. This company grew 5.3% year over year, ahead of that shrinking group pace. Latest-quarter sales growth was +5.3% versus a year earlier (SEC filings).

CompanyPrice (Oct 28, 2026)Forward P/ETrailing P/E
AT&T (T)$20.938.2×11.2×
TMUS$145.6811.6×15.3×
VZ$43.708.4×11.2×
CMCSA$21.526.3×6.9×
ECHO$88.2936.6×—
CHTR$105.052.4×2.7×
Peer median8.4×

Multiples: stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026. Peer set chosen by sector; the median is the middle value of the set. The label and its numbers were recorded in the programme’s label registry on Oct 28, 2026 and will be scored at 6 and 12 months.

Sales, profit and cash

Sales and profit each quarter
SalesNet income (profit)
$0B$17B$34B$51BSep 2020Sep 2021Sep 2022Sep 2023Sep 2024Sep 2025Sep 2026

This company does not report a gross-profit line in its SEC facts (normal for banks, payment networks and some health insurers), so profit is shown as net income instead — gross margin is marked UNVERIFIED-absent rather than estimated.

Cash left over each quarter (free cash flow)
PositiveNegative
$-8B$0B$8BSep 2020Sep 2021Sep 2022Sep 2023Sep 2024Sep 2025Sep 2026

Free cash flow = cash from operations minus spending on plant and equipment, both from the company’s SEC cash-flow statement. Gaps are quarters where that spending line is not separately tagged in the filings — shown as gaps, never estimated.

QuarterSalesGross marginNet incomeEPS (GAAP, diluted)Free cash flow
Q/E Sep 2026
2026-09-30
$32.3B—$891M0.12$5.5B
Q/E Jun 2026
2026-06-30
$31.6B—$4.6B0.66$5.1B
Q/E Mar 2026
2026-03-31
$31.5B—$3.8B0.54$2.7B
Q/E Dec 2025
2025-12-31
$33.5B—$3.8B—$4.5B
Q/E Sep 2025
2025-09-30
$30.7B—$9.3B1.29$5.3B
Q/E Jun 2025
2025-06-30
$30.8B—$4.5B0.62$4.9B
Q/E Mar 2025
2025-03-31
$30.6B—$4.4B0.61$4.8B
Q/E Dec 2024
2024-12-31
$32.3B—$4.1B—$5.1B
Q/E Sep 2024
2024-09-30
$30.2B—$-174M-0.03$4.9B
Q/E Jun 2024
2024-06-30
$29.8B—$3.6B0.49$4.7B
Q/E Mar 2024
2024-03-31
$30.0B—$3.4B0.47$3.8B
Q/E Dec 2023
2023-12-31
$32.0B—$2.2B—$6.8B

The last twelve reported quarters. Full 25-quarter history sits in the data pack behind this page. A dash means the figure is not tagged as a standalone quarter in the company’s SEC facts (the usual case is the fourth quarter, which many companies only report inside the full-year filing) — it is missing, not zero.

Earnings: getting better or worse?

Each box is one quarter’s earnings per share (EPS). Green means EPS was higher than the same quarter a year earlier; red means lower; a dash means the figure is not tagged in the filings.

Dec 2022
—
Mar 2023
0.57
Jun 2023
0.61
Sep 2023
0.48
Dec 2023
—
Mar 2024
0.47
Jun 2024
0.49
Sep 2024
-0.03
Dec 2024
—
Mar 2025
0.61
Jun 2025
0.62
Sep 2025
1.29
Dec 2025
—
Mar 2026
0.54
Jun 2026
0.66
Sep 2026
0.12

Basis: GAAP diluted EPS from SEC company facts, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

Key facts

ItemValue
Company (legal name in filings)AT&T INC.
Chief executiveJohn Stankey (source: http://investors.att.com/corporate-governance/leadership/john-stankey-bio)
SectorCommunication Services — Integrated Telecommunication Services — sells mobile phone, broadband and business communications services
Share price (Oct 28, 2026)$20.93
Market value (market cap)$141.1B — share price times shares outstanding of 6,736,473,433 (SEC filings; SEC EDGAR dei EntityCommonStockSharesOutstanding (latest))
Sales, last twelve months$128.9B
Net income, last twelve months$13.1B
Free cash flow, last twelve months$17.8B
Latest reported quarterQ/E Sep 2026 (of 25 quarters in the data pack)
Six-year price return vs S&P 500-9.20% vs +118.28%
Worst peak-to-trough fall-47.3% (2021-05-10 to 2023-07-18)

What we could not verify

  • Gross profit / gross margin: not tagged as a standalone line in this company's EDGAR company facts (common for banks, payment networks and some healthcare payers) — shown as UNVERIFIED-absent; the page charts revenue and net income instead.
  • TTM GAAP diluted EPS could not be summed from company facts because at least one of the last four quarters (typically Q4) has no standalone tagged EPS; trailing P/E is therefore taken from the labelled secondary source in valuation_label.md.
  • Own-history P/E range not yet compiled for this company in the Phase 1 batch run; the label rests on peer-median, growth and PEG evidence.
  • Guidance record (each quarter scored against the guidance the company gave the quarter before) is not yet compiled for this company — it is a Phase 2 layer. The earnings strip below therefore uses reported EPS versus a year earlier, which is fully sourced from filings.

The IT factor — the most exciting thing the market is overlooking — is not assessed on an X-Ray page. It belongs to the Deep Dive (Phase 2), where it gets the evidence standard it needs. Leadership-era scoring (the six years split by chief executive) is likewise a Phase 2 layer; this page names the current chief executive only, from a sourced profile.

Sources

  • SEC EDGAR submissions — Filing index; company legal name. https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000732717.json
  • SEC EDGAR company facts — Quarterly financial spine: revenue, gross profit, net income, GAAP diluted EPS, operating cash flow, PP&E capex, buybacks, dividends, diluted shares. https://data.sec.gov/api/xbrl/companyfacts/CIK0000732717.json
  • Nasdaq official daily history — Daily closes for the company; SPY (assetclass=etf) saved as raw/nasdaq_spy_raw.json over identical dates. https://api.nasdaq.com/api/quote/T/historical?assetclass=stocks
  • Valuation multiples and peer figures — stockanalysis.com (SECONDARY, S&P Global data), fetched Oct 28, 2026; see valuation_label.md in the data pack.

Conventions: earliest-filed value per period, as first reported; cash-flow years-to-date differenced quarter by quarter; EPS never differenced; free cash flow = operating cash flow minus plant-and-equipment spending. This page is a dated snapshot — updates are new versions, never silent edits.

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