For the past year, Intelligence by Inside Towers™ has been tracking the weekly stock performance of 13 key public infrastructure companies. The resulting Wireless Infrastructure Value Index is an indication of the relative value of these companies’ stock prices as a whole over a moving 52-week interval.
The Index is composed of the normalized stock prices of 13 top North American-based infrastructure companies and real estate investment trusts (REITs) in the wireless infrastructure business. The lineup includes tower companies, data centers, fiber network operators and diversified digital infrastructure organizations. Several of these companies own and operate wireless infrastructure outside of North America.
In December, the list of monitored companies dropped to 12 after American Tower closed on its acquisition of CoreSite Realty data centers.
Those infrastructure companies represented an aggregate market capitalization of $465 billion at the end of 2021 with the Big 3 tower companies and the two top data center companies accounting for 84 percent of that total.
How to Interpret the Index
The portion of the curve above the benchmark level of 100 suggests overall business growth and positive stock performance and value creation.
The curve is not smooth, however. There are many highs and lows. The Index moves with stock prices as investors respond to each company’s reporting of its progress and prospects in its respective market, and stock analysts’ recommendations.
52-Week Performance
For 2021, the Index rose steadily since the beginning of Q2. For the week, and the year, ending December 31, the Index reached its high point at 127.1, up nearly 4 percent from to 122.7 in the prior week, and exceeding the prior high point of 126.2 for the year reached during the week of September 3. That year-end peak represents a 38 percent increase in cumulative infrastructure stock prices over the past 52 weeks.
The dip at the end of Q1 occurred because investors expected the Big 3 tower companies to show increased results faster with new MLAs in place as their national mobile network operator tenants, including DISH, accelerated their 5G network builds.
That anticipated uptick didn’t happen until after the FCC C-band auction which closed at the end of February. At that point, the towerco outlook for the balance of 2021 and beyond became clear. From Q2, infrastructure stocks rose steadily and peaked in early September, then dropped by the end of Q3.
That drop reflected investor concerns about growing inflation and higher interest rates. Going into Q4 and through the end of the year, however, those concerns seem to have abated. Now, there appears to be growing investor confidence in the tower, data center and fiber infrastructure sectors going into 2022.
A detailed presentation of the Wireless Infrastructure Value Index is available in the latest Intelligence Q3 2021 Issue. (The Wireless Infrastructure Value Index is a proprietary product of Inside Towers.)
For more information, or to subscribe, visit: www.insidetowers.com/intelligence
By John Celentano, Inside Towers Business Editor
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