determined to leave the company and would eventually find a way to take a big part of it with him. Fresh Exuberance Over the summer and fall of 1998, AT&T's investor base stabilized. The company's stock was now in the hands of investors who were comfortable with the notion of a tracking stock. The cost of upgrading TCI's cable systems became clearer. And then AT&T announced a series of deals that capitalized on its acknowledged strengths and filled perceived voids. First came the joint venture with BT, which gave the company an in-country presence in economic centers outside the United States and a deep-pocketed partner to share the cost of build- ing a new data network to connect them. Then AT&T acquired Van- guard Cellular Systems, Inc., adding 625,000 wireless customers and greatly expanding its footprint in the eastern United States. Finally, in early December 1998, the company acquired the IBM Global Network, which extended to more than 850 cities in 59 countries. And as part of that deal, the company signed IBM to a separate five-year, $5 billion outsourcing agreement. No one really understands what moves the stock market, but AT&T's experience in 1998 suggests that stock prices often move in three stages. First, the skeptics bail out. Eventually, the stock reaches a point of equilibrium. And then something ignites buying interest. The deals Tough Calls AT&T completed in the summer and fall of 1998 acted as a positive accelerant for its stock price. By the Christmas holidays of 1998, it hovered in the mid- to high $70s. Sitting at his ski house in Telluride, Colorado, Armstrong had an epiphany: He didn't need the tracker. The market seemed to have been able to value AT&T without it. He called John Malone and found him surprisingly comfortable with the idea. Then, on the first day of business in 1999, Armstrong called all the senior managers together once more and explained his reasoning. The tracker had been attractive to him because it would force inves- tors to value AT&T as the sum of its parts, rather t