Stock Market Today, Oct. 23: AT&T Slides on SpaceX Cell-Site Talks

Bloomberg's report of SpaceX negotiations for 80,000 cell sites reignited carrier-competition fears, sending wireless stocks lower, today, Oct. 23, 2026.

By Will Healy – Oct 23, 2026 at 5:05PM EST 

AT&T (T-7.96%), a wireless and fiber telecom services provider, closed at $20.93, down 7.96%. Bloomberg's report on SpaceX's cell-site talks pressured the stock, and investors are now watching wireless competition and capital strategy.
Trading volume reached 84.6M shares, coming in about 88% above its three-month average of 45.1M shares.

How the markets moved today

S&P 500 (^GSPC-0.52%) fell 0.53% to 7,623, and the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC-0.21%) slipped 0.21% to 25,955. In U.S. wireless telecommunications services and fiber broadband, Verizon Communications closed at $44.66, down 1.19%, while T-Mobile US fell 7.71% to $146.54 as concerns about carrier competition remained in focus.

What this means for investors

AT&T stock plunged after Bloomberg reported that Space Exploration Technologies is in negotiations to obtain access to around 80,000 cell sites, presumably to build America's fourth nationwide wireless network.

AT&T and its peers, Verizon and T-Mobile, have long operated on the premise that prospective new competitors would avoid entering the market due to the high likelihood of massive capital costs and low profit margins.

Now, SpaceX is blowing this theory out of the water. Additionally, with satellite coverage supplementing a terrestrial network, it would have a competitive advantage among customers who spend a lot of time in rural areas, likely placing further competitive pressure on AT&T.

These fears have also seemed to overshadow good news for AT&T. In its Oct. 21 earnings report, AT&T beat earnings estimates and raised its 2026 guidance. Additionally, NBT Bancorp bought 91,368 AT&T shares valued at around $2.23 million.

Admittedly, an added competitive challenge does not bode particularly well for AT&T. Nonetheless, AT&T provides a necessary service, and wireless customers tend to be sticky. Moreover, investors can buy AT&T stock now at an 11 P/E ratio and earn a 5.3% dividend yield, suggesting the Friday sell-off of the communication stock might be a buying opportunity.

MRVL stock | 5 min chart |

 

Take profit - Should consider 5 min chart EMA 200 - purple color line 

VZ stock | 5 min chart | 250 shares | Trade with gain $

 

T stock | 1 min vs 5 min chart

 

5 min chart - More update

marketsmith rs rating github page free download

 If you are looking for a free GitHub repository to replicate the Investor's Business Daily (IBD) / MarketSmith Relative Strength (RS) Rating (the 1-99 percentile score) or its visual layout, there are a few primary open-source projects you can download:

1. MarketSmith Indicator for TradingView (by Fred6725)

This is the most popular repository for replicates of the MarketSmith visual template and RS Rating directly onto a free TradingView account. [1]

What it is: A 4-in-1 tool containing customized MarketSmith-style bars, daily/weekly SMA/EMA, high/low points, and an integrated IBD-style RS Rating (1-99 score). [1, 2]
How it works: It uses an auto-updating Python backend hosted on GitHub to process US stock data, matching the actual MarketSmith RS scoring with an average deviation of only ±3 to 5 points. [1]
Download/View Code: Fred6725 / MarketSmith-Indicator-TradingView GitHub [1]
Alternative (Python Backend only): Fred6725 / relative-strength GitHub [1]

2. IBD-Style Relative Strength Percentile Ranking (by skyte)

If you want a standalone local script rather than a TradingView integration, this repository computes the math behind the 0-100 RS score natively.

What it is: A Python script that downloads data directly from Yahoo Finance, measures yearly stock performance (weighting the most recent quarter double), and compares it against the SPY index to rank tickers into a percentile. [1]
Output: Generates local spreadsheet files (rs_stocks.csv and rs_industries.csv). [1]
Download/View Code: skyte / relative-strength GitHub [1]

3. MarketSmith "Blue Dot" RS Screener (by iArpanK)

MarketSmith premium users heavily rely on the "Blue Dot" scanner, which flags stocks hitting a new high in their RS Line. [1]

What it is: A Python-based screener that scans for stocks making new highs in Relative Strength and sorts them using the exact same calculation formula as the IBD RS Rating. [1]
Download/View Code: iArpanK / RS-Screener GitHub [1]

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How to use these downloaded scripts:

For TradingView scripts: You do not even need to install Python. Go to the GitHub page, open the .txt or .pine code file, copy the script, open the Pine Editor at the bottom of your TradingView chart, paste it, and click Add to Chart.
For Python programs (skyte or iArpanK): Download the ZIP folder from GitHub, ensure you have Python installed, and run pip install -r requirements.txt via your terminal to acquire the necessary dependencies (like yfinance) before running the script. [1]

Are you planning to run a standalone scanner code on your desktop, or are you trying to apply a visual layout directly onto charts like TradingView? Let me know so I can guide you through the setup!

ketsmith rs rating, do blackstone investment company has measurement tool like rs rating for each stock?

 No, Blackstone Inc. (BX)—the global alternative asset manager—does not have a proprietary stock-ranking or relative strength (RS) measurement tool like Investor's Business Daily (IBD) or MarketSmith. [1, 2]

Key Differences:

MarketSmith / IBD RS Rating: This is a quantitative technical analysis tool that ranks individual public stocks on a scale from 1 to 99 based on their 52-week price performance compared to the rest of the stock market. (Ironically, Blackstone’s own stock is tracked by MarketSmith and IBD, often earning high RS ratings). [1, 2, 3]
Blackstone (BX): Blackstone is an investment firm and asset manager (handling private equity, real estate, credit, and hedge funds) rather than a retail stock-analysis platform. They do not publish a public stock-screening or relative strength ranking system for general equities. [1]

If you are looking for stock-screening tools similar to MarketSmith's RS rating or want to know how to track relative strength on other platforms, let me know what you'd like to analyze.

American Tower Corporation's towers

 Wireless service providers, broadcasters, and other communication companies lease space on American Tower Corporation's towers. [1]

Major Tenants

AT&T
Verizon Wireless
T-Mobile
Broadcasters and private industries (leasing antenna and equipment space) [1, 2, 3, 4]

How It Works

American Tower acts as the landlord, owning the physical steel structures and leasing the underlying land.
Carriers and tenants mount their own antennas, transceivers, and networking gear onto the towers to transmit wireless signals to customers.
Colocation allows multiple different network operators to share the same single tower structure to reduce costs and build out coverage. [1, 2, 3]

AT& T uses crown castle tower or not

 Yes, AT&T uses cell towers owned or operated by Crown Castle. [1, 2]

• The Tower Deal: In 2013, AT&T sold 600 towers and leased the rights to about 9,100 additional towers (roughly 9,700 towers total) to Crown Castle for $4.85 billion. [1, 2]
Leaseback Arrangement: Under the agreement, AT&T leases space back on these towers to house its wireless equipment. [1, 2]
Current Status: Crown Castle remains one of the primary independent tower infrastructure providers that AT&T relies on alongside other operators like American Tower. [1, 2]

Would you like to know about AT&T's agreements with other major tower companies (like American Tower) or how network roaming and sharing work on these sites?

VZ T TMUS stock | SPCX update

 

	4:23 PM (8 minutes ago)
to me

结论先说：**这篇基本属实，就是今晚盘后下跌的真催化剂**，核心事实与原始报道（Bloomberg）对得上。我刚才说"暂没查到单一消息头"——现在查到了，纠正一下。

逐项核对：

1. **跌幅属实**：盘后 T −4.6%（$21.70）、VZ −4.9%、TMUS −4.3%，三家同步，Finnhub 数据确认。

2. **80,000 个基站属实，但注意措辞**：Bloomberg 引述知情人士称 SpaceX 正在寻求至少 80,000 个 cell sites 的接入，正在与至少一家大型基站公司谈判，Crown Castle 是被接触的一家（AMT、Vertical Bridge 也在名单上）。**目前是谈判/接触阶段，没有签约、没有金额落定**——文章写"谈判"是对的，别读成已成交。

3. **"第四家全国运营商"属实且有本人原话**：马斯克在本周 SPCX 财报电话会上明说要建地面网络（"We will be building out our terrestrial networks"），目标是让 Starlink Mobile 成为"美国主要移动运营商"。加上已买的 EchoStar + Grain 频谱，这不是试探，是路线图。

4. **"数十亿美元租赁"属实**：Bloomberg 原话就是协议价值可达 billions。交叉印证：铁塔股盘后 CCI +9%、AMT +5%——市场同时在定价"新运营商必须租塔"。

5. **文章没说的时间维度**：Grain 频谱交易还等 FCC 批准；Bernstein 估算全网需 3–12 万个站点，一年新建塔只有 1,200–2,000 座，所以只能靠租——这正是谈判的由来。网络建成以年计，威胁的是运营商的长期定价权和终值，不是下个季度的用户数。

和你的持仓对一句事实：你盘后 $21.72 接回 T，买的正是这条消息砸出来的价，和 10 月 9 日 Grain 频谱那次是同一逻辑的第二次冲击（那次盘后跌 6–7%）。另外 VZ 周一（10/26）盘前财报，现在又叠上这条板块消息。