For those of you who are regular Sunday Brief readers, the chart below will not come as a surprise. Here are the changes to market capitalizations for the Fab 5 and the Talco Top 5 for the week ending Friday, November 27:
Don’t let the shortness of the Thanksgiving week fool ya – there was plenty of activity, with the Fab 5 gaining $131 billion (roughly one Charter) and the Telco Top 5 gaining $19 billion. There have been a lot of headlines this week about how strong November was for the market as a whole. While the Fab 5 gained $474 billion through November 27, that pales in comparison to July (~$800 billion) and August (~$870 billion). A good month, but not the same as the summer.
If the Fab 5 prices stay steady in December, they will be on their way to back-to-back 48% gains. That’s quite a feat considering they began 2019 with a cumulative $3.33 trillion value. If they were to extend these gains into 2021, they would have a cumulative market capitalization approaching $11 trillion or nearly 11x their Telco counterparts.
Then there’s the Telco Top 5, where three stocks are pulling the overall average positive. Comcast continues their remarkable recovery, now up 16% YTD. There’s a distinct possibility that they will lead the Telco Top 5 in market capitalization for most of 2021 ($237 billion now vs Verizon’s $251 billion).
Another interesting point is the shrinking capitalization gap between AT&T and T-Mobile (currently at $43 billion). As T-Mobile is able to delineate (network) synergy savings and show it can grow market share, there’s a possibility that AT&T could end up next December smaller than Comcast, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
As we noted in our earlier post today, the iPhone appears to be off to a strong start. Upgrades are likely going to be higher than many expect, held back only by supplies.
We will be posting additional market commentary in next week’s Brief.
