Lumen. The name sounded like a forgotten corner of a library. But the stock? It had a pulse last year. A strong one. Up 46.3%, the numbers said. The kind of jump that makes a man wonder if someone knew something the rest of us didn’t. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq had their own little party, sure, but Lumen was dancing on the table.
The market always has its darlings. Last year, it seemed Lumen had caught a fleeting glance from the fickle goddess of speculation. New deals, whispers about AI… it was a cocktail of hope and hype. The kind that usually leaves a bad taste, but this time, it lingered.
A Turnaround, Slow and Steady
After a surge in ’24 that smelled suspiciously of a bubble, Lumen spent most of ’25 trading water. Then, in August, a deal with the Pac-12 conference. College athletics. Not exactly the bleeding edge of tech, but it was a signal. A flicker of something solid beneath the surface. It patched over the holes left by a disappointing earnings report. Enough to keep the wolves at bay, at least for a while.
October brought the real news. Palantir. A name that sounded like a spy novel. A $200 million contract to weave Lumen’s connectivity into their AI platform. Suddenly, the whispers got louder. The stock jumped like a startled cat. Palantir is big in the AI game, and the market doesn’t like to ignore that kind of thing.
The third quarter results offered a brief reprieve, a little sugar to sweeten the deal. But November brought the usual chill. The AI bubble talk started, and the smart money began to edge away. December was a slow bleed. Still, Lumen managed to close the year in the green. A survivor, if nothing else.
A Fast Start to ’26
The new year started with a kick. Up 8.8% as of this writing. The S&P and Nasdaq were tagging along, but Lumen was leading the charge. The AI fever hasn’t broken, and the demand for the hardware to feed it is still strong.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, TSMC, reported better-than-expected numbers. That’s the real engine driving this thing. They make the chips, and if they’re selling, that means someone is building. Lumen’s Private Connectivity Fabric, PCF, is the pipeline. It’s not glamorous, but it’s necessary. And in this game, necessity has a price. The kind of price that keeps a stock climbing. For now, at least. The market giveth, and the market taketh away. It always does.
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2026-01-18 14:52