AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) is scheduled to release its second-quarter financial results after the markets close on Tuesday. The shares signaled some optimism and made a slight gain after Verizon reported its earnings before the markets opened Tuesday.

The consensus estimates for AT&T from Thomson Reuters call for $0.85 in earnings per share (EPS) and $39.39 billion in revenue. In the same period of last year, the telecom said it had EPS of $0.79 on $39.84 billion in revenue.

Last week AT&T announced that it will increase the number of cities that will get super-fast 5G wireless service to six. The 5G deployments, which all four major carriers plan to roll out over the next several years, are nearly as important as the invention of the telephone.

The company announced:

AT&T plans to begin introducing mobile 5G to customers in a dozen cities this year, and today we’re adding Charlotte and Raleigh, N.C. and Oklahoma City as the next three identified cities for our buildout. These cities will join our previously announced cities of Dallas, Atlanta, and Waco.

Excluding Tuesday’s move, AT&T has underperformed the broad markets, with the stock down about 15% in the past 52 weeks. In just 2018 alone, the stock is down 20%.

A few analysts weighed in on AT&T prior to the release of the earnings report:

• Scotiabank has a Hold rating with a $33 price target.
• Raymond James has a Market Perform rating and a $31.75 target.
• Credit Suisse has an Underperform rating with a $29 target price.
• Morgan Stanley has an Overweight rating and a $37 price target.
• JPMorgan has a Neutral rating with a $36 price target.
• Oppenheimer has an Outperform rating with a $41 target.

Shares of AT&T were last seen up about 1% at $31.39, with a consensus analyst price target of $36.64 and a 52-week trading range of $30.80 to $39.80.

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