The Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS) share price is having a cracking day today.
Telstra shares are up 2.8% at the time of writing to $3.49 a share after closing at $3.38 on Friday afternoon. They opened at $3.40 this morning. That's a significant outperformance compared to the broader markets.
The S&P/SX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is only up 0.02% today by comparison. The Telstra share price went as high as $3.49 early last month, but it had slowly retreated from those highs before today.
As we covered last week, Telstra shares have been pretty much flat over April, despite rising strongly in the previous month. On today's pricing, Telstra is now only a few cents from its 52-week high of $3.54 that we saw in July last year.
So why are Telstra shares rising so healthily today?
Telstra share price on the rise
It's not entirely clear what has gotten investors hot under the collar for Telstra today.
There have been no major market announcements out of the ASX's largest telco since 23 April. That announcement detailed how Telstra had spent $277 million on additional 5G spectrum rights.
At the time, Telstra CEO Andy Penn said the new spectrum would help the company build on the "already superior 5G experience Telstra provides across the country". Telstra's 5G network now covers close to two-thirds of the Australian population. It's on track to reach three-quarters by the end of June.
But that was almost 2 weeks ago now, so it's probably not what is driving the Telstra share price higher today.
Perhaps it's just continued optimism over Telstra's well-received plan to separate and restructure its assets into 4 companies that were announced last month as well. This will see Telstra effectively become 4 separate companies trading under one umbrella by the end of the year.
Or perhaps a group of investors, or one large investor, has just looked at the Telstra share price and liked what they've seen. The company is trading with a market capitalisation of $41.3 billion, a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 23.3, and a trailing dividend yield of 4.61% (6.59% grossed-up) on current pricing.
Whatever the reason, Telstra's share price gains today will no doubt be welcomed by its shareholders.
