A historic shift is underway as telecom stocks quietly become one of the strongest groups in the market.
April 8, 2026
Yesterday, we highlighted Millicom International Cellular $TIGO as one of the most compelling growth stories in the market right now.
A telecom stock breaking out to new all-time highs with explosive earnings growth isn’t something you see every day.
But the more important takeaway wasn’t just TIGO.
It was the message underneath it.
Because this isn’t an isolated story, it’s part of a much bigger shift happening across the entire telecommunications industry.
For years, telecom stocks have been written off as dead money. Slow growth, heavy capital requirements, limited upside. The type of stocks you park money in when you want dividends, not performance.
That’s no longer the case...
While the S&P 500 is down year-to-date, telecom stocks are quietly ripping higher. The telecom ETF $IYZ is up more than 20% this year and trading at its highest levels since 2001.
And now we’re seeing that same strength show up where it matters most.
Earnings reactions.
Last quarter, telecom stocks looked just like you’d expect. Weak reactions, negative sentiment, nothing to get excited about.
The group had an average reaction score of -0.7, underperforming a sluggish broader market.
Fast forward to today, and the entire script has flipped.
Telecom stocks just delivered an average reaction score of 4. That’s not just strong, that’s one of the best readings in the entire market.
Meanwhile, the S&P 500 barely moved the needle, posting an average reaction score of just 0.2.
That’s a massive divergence.
And when you drill down into the individual names, the story gets even better.
Comcast $CMCSA, AT&T $T, and T-Mobile $TMUS all went from negative reaction scores last quarter to firmly positive this quarter.
That kind of shift doesn’t happen randomly...
It signals a meaningful change in how the market is interpreting the underlying fundamentals.
Then there’s Verizon $VZ, which had the best reaction score in the group last quarter, and the best again this quarter. That’s what sustained institutional demand looks like.
And this is how leadership emerges.
It doesn’t start with headlines. It starts with subtle improvements in earnings sentiment, followed by persistent accumulation.
And before you know it, the stocks are making new highs while nobody’s paying attention.
Sound familiar?
That’s exactly what we’re seeing in names like TIGO.
And it’s telling us that telecom is no longer a place to hide.
It’s a place to hunt.
If you want to stay ahead of moves like this, you need to know where the strongest earnings reactions are happening before they show up in price.
That’s exactly what we do in the Premium Beat Report. We track reaction scores across the entire market, surface the stocks showing real institutional demand, and help our members position alongside those trends early.
Because when a group like telecom goes from laggard to leader, the opportunity isn’t in recognizing it late… It’s in acting on it early.
Thank you for reading,
-The Beat Team
P.S. Jason Perz, Sam Gatlin, and JC Parets went LIVE on Thursday to show you how they're making money from inflation
They covered where energy goes from here, what's setting up behind it, and the position-sizing framework that separates the traders who make money in commodity cycles from those who don't.
