What Happened?
Shares of telecommunications infrastructure company Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) jumped 4.5% in the afternoon session after the company announced the appointment of a former Microsoft AI executive to a key leadership role, coupled with a significant stock purchase by its Chief Financial Officer. The network services provider appointed Sean Alexander, a founding executive of Microsoft AI, as Senior Vice President of Connected Ecosystems. In this new role, Alexander is tasked with building a team to drive customer co-innovation, strategic partnerships, and new revenue streams. This strategic hire suggests a stronger focus on high-growth areas like AI.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Lumen’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 48 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 5 days ago when the stock gained 4.7% on the news that the company announced it has surpassed 1,000 customers on its Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform, a major milestone since the service's launch.
The Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) platform, which launched in late 2023, allows business customers like Best Buy, Foot Locker, and Columbia Sportswear to digitally manage and scale their network connectivity on demand. This milestone follows a recent second-quarter earnings report where Lumen posted a much narrower-than-expected loss per share of $0.03, significantly beating the consensus forecast of a $0.25 loss. During the earnings call, the company had highlighted strong growth in NaaS adoption. Adding to the positive sentiment, the company's CEO recently purchased over $500,000 worth of company stock, signaling strong internal confidence.
Lumen is down 16.9% since the beginning of the year, and at $4.66 per share, it is trading 54% below its 52-week high of $10.12 from November 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Lumen’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $427.51.
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