Shares of AT&T slid lower in afternoon trading as the company warned that analyst consensus for its third-quarter earnings are inflated.
As AT&T prepares to report after market close Thursday, Seeking Alpha reports that the company told Dow Jones that a Capital IQ consensus of $40.39 billion in revenue is unrealistic.
AT&T says that the figure includes DirecTV numbers for the full month of July, when AT&T will only report DirecTV’s contributions from July 25.
“With our DirecTV merger having closed on July 24, 2015, we want to make an important clarification for investors heading into our earnings announcement on Thursday,” wrote Brad Burns in a statement. “It is clear many revenue estimates for DirecTV include the full month of July. Under GAAP we are only allowed to include revenue beginning July 25 so current consolidated revenue consensus estimates are inflated. This is a one-time variance as analysts sort through some of the normal modeling of an acquisition.”
Shares of AT&T were off a half a percentage point to $33.58 as of 3:45 ET.
The warning comes after AT&T earlier this week reported that it would take a $1.1 billion charge on currency issues surrounding DirecTV’s assets in Venezuela.