AT&T upgraded to Outperform from Perform at Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan upgraded AT&T (T) to Outperform from Perform with a $21 price target. The shares have underperformed the market and peers the past few years as the company underwent a difficult transition to position itself as a pure connectivity provider, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm believes these headwinds “have moved to the rearview” while AT&T should now benefit from a number of tailwinds, including “massive improvements” to network capacity, improved broadband subscriber and revenue trends, and the potential to merge DirecTV with EchoStar’s (SATS) Dish.