This week has been an interesting one for the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO). As it stands this Friday, the ASX 200 is in the green, although ever so slightly. The ASX 200 is currently up by 0.08% at the time of writing to 7,421 points. That puts it in the green for the week so far too, by around 0.9% to be precise. But what of the Telstra Corporation Ltd (ASX: TLS) share price?
Telstra is, of course, one of the ASX 200's staple blue chip shares. And one which has been delivering some impressive returns for investors in recent years.
The Telstra share price is presently up a pleasing 24.92% year to date in 2021, as well as being up a robust 36.7% over the past 12 months. That compares pretty favourably against the ASX 200, which has managed to eke out gains of 10.65% and 20.02% over the same periods respectively.
But how has Telstra performed over the past week?
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Telstra share price has a week to forget
Well, not as impressively, as it turns out. Telstra started the week at a share price of $3.85. As it stands today at the time of writing, Telstra is trading at $3.76 a share. That means this ASX 200 telco has gone backwards by 2.34% over the week so far. That contrasts very unfavourably against the ASX 200's gains of 0.62% so far.
So what might have sparked this lacklustre performance from Telstra this week?
Well, we can't say for sure. There have been no news or announcements out of the telco this week at all. However, there have been some other developments in the ASX telco space which might have played a role.
The first was the results of a report on Australian internet speeds that my Fool colleague Brooke covered back on Tuesday. According to the Ookla quarterly Australian internet speed report, Telstra's broadband internet was, on average, slower than most of its rival telco providers, including Optus, iiNet, Vodafone, Aussie Broadband Ltd (ASX: ABB) and TPG Telecom Ltd (ASX: TPG). Not exactly a good look for Telstra.
The second was news from Aussie Broadband, a newer rival to Telstra in the telco space. As we covered just this morning, there are rumours that Aussie Broadband is in talks to purchase the IT telecommunications provider Over The Wire Holdings Ltd (ASX: OTW). Over the Wire is "a company that specialises in converged voice and data networks", as my Fool colleague Zach covered earlier.
It's possible that a combination of these developments has seen investors lose interest in Telstra shares, at least temporarily.
At the current Telstra share price, this ASX 200 telco has a market capitalisation of $44.84 billion, a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 24.11 and a dividend yield of 4.26%.
