Verizon Stock Slid 3.2% on Earnings, Dragging XLC to Its Lowest Since June 2025

Verizon's earnings report did what little else could on an otherwise green Monday: it turned communication services into the day's clear laggard. The telecom giant slid 3.2% on its quarterly results, and XLC, the sector ETF that holds it, fell 1.57% to its lowest level since June 2025 even as the S&P 500 climbed.

The move is a single-company story, but it spread through the whole sector. XLC closed down 1.57%, the sole meaningful decliner among the sector SPDRs on a day when technology (XLK) gained 1.69%, industrials (XLI) 1.42% and consumer discretionary (XLY) 1.03%. It was not just Verizon. AppLovin and T-Mobile each set fresh 52-week lows, so the weakness was broad within the group even as the broader index printed a rebound, according to CNBC and Yahoo Finance quotes from Monday's close.

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That the S&P 500 still added 0.7% to 7,676.77 shows how narrow Monday's advance was. The bounce was led by megacap technology after Anthropic filed publicly to list on the Nasdaq under the ticker ANT, and semiconductor-related ETFs popped roughly 3% even though they remain well below their highs. Communication services sat opposite that trade, and defensives like staples (XLP, down 0.34%) and utilities (XLU, down 0.02%) did not help the tape. The VIX eased 5.45% to 18.39, a calmer tone that says little about the week ahead.

The sector picture will be tested by the events already on the calendar. The Federal Reserve decides Wednesday with a roughly 90% hold priced, and Thursday brings the Q3 GDP advance estimate, September PCE and about 163 S&P 500 earnings reports, including hyperscaler capex guidance. For communication services, the question is whether Verizon's miss was stock-specific or the first crack in a sector that had been tracking the AI-led tape. The decline pushed XLC to a level not seen since June 2025, and whether earnings noise clears or broadens will decide if this is a one-day stumble or the start of a sector rotation out of the group.

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