Communications-services companies rose as traders digested the implications of SpaceX's recent purchase of wireless spectrum.

Some Wall Street brokerages said a selloff in telecom stocks in the wake of the report was overdone because Elon Musk's space-travel company would need more time, more spectrum purchases and more terrestrial infrastructure to present a serious competitive threat to the wireless carriers. Shares of SpaceX fell Tuesday.

Analysts at brokerage Bernstein cut their rating on shares of AT&T, citing the likelihood that the SpaceX threat will loom over the company's shares.