TMUS (T-Mobile US): BUY stock
Leg: BUY TMUS shares
Thesis
The trigger is the selloff after SpaceX's spectrum deal. T-Mobile closed down 13.3% on October 9 when SpaceX agreed to buy Grain Management's nationwide 800 MHz portfolio for Starlink Mobile. Invested Alpha reports the three carriers lost $57.6 billion in market value that session. The spectrum itself is up to 14 MHz of paired low-band, at a reported price of about $8 billion. It is Sprint's old Nextel block, which T-Mobile sold to Grain in August for $2.9 billion. T-Mobile's CTO noted the company served 50 million subscribers on 85 MHz in 2016. The deal still needs FCC approval. SpaceX is also raising $40 billion through Apollo for Nvidia chips, so the capital for a full ground network will compete with its AI spending.
The stock is at $151.24. Its year high is $230.65 and its year low $147.90. Trefis puts the free cash flow yield at 8.2%, against a 4.5% median for the S&P 500. T-Mobile expanded its 2026 capital return plan to as much as $18.2 billion in April, so buybacks can absorb weakness at these prices. Raymond James upgraded the stock to Outperform with a $170 target on October 12. Bank of America argued in August that SpaceX's wireless push could end up helping T-Mobile and spectrum values. Beta is 0.18, so the position adds little market risk at a time when AI-funding headlines are hitting high-beta tech.
I'm buying stock rather than options. TMUS IV rank is 106 and IV percentile is 99.75, so premium is at the top of its range.
Main risk. Earnings come on 2026-10-28 after the close. Before the SpaceX news the stock was already sliding on softer wireless service revenue expectations and price competition, from $171 on October 8 and lower before that. A weak churn or postpaid adds print would confirm that trend, and the year low would likely break. The Starlink Mobile story could also keep pressing the stock even if no subscribers actually leave. Each new SpaceX announcement since June has hit the carriers again. The liquidity rating is 2. That is fine for shares of a $159 billion company, but it is another reason to avoid the options. Size the position to absorb a move toward the $141 area that traders have flagged as a technical target.