3 Things About AT&T That Smart Investors Know
AT&T (NYSE: T) was once considered a stable blue-chip stock, but it's lost about 40% of its value over the past five years. The telecom giant's steep decline can be attributed to its debt-fueled acquisitions of DirecTV and Time Warner, the slow death of its linear pay TV business, and its costly attempts to challenge Netflix and Disney in the streaming video market.
AT&T has been trying to rectify those mistakes by selling a major stake in DirecTV, spinning off Time Warner's assets into a new company through a merger with Discovery (NASDAQ: DISCA) (NASDAQ: DISCK), and divesting its non-core businesses to reduce its long-term debt. Those decisions represent baby steps in the right direction, but it could take years for AT&T to become a reliable long-term investment again.
Image source: AT&T.
Source Fool.com
