What Happened?
Shares of telecommunications infrastructure company Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) jumped 12% in the morning session after the company announced significant progress on a multi-billion-dollar network expansion to meet the soaring demand from Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Lumen detailed its plans to add 34 million new intercity fiber miles by the end of 2028, which would bring its total to 47 million. This move represented more than doubling the size of the company's U.S. network infrastructure. The company stated that it had already deployed over 2.2 million new fiber miles in 2025. An executive noted that AI was fueling a surge in network demand unlike any seen before and that Lumen was building the backbone to meet it. This major investment positioned the company to capture growth from enterprises needing the network scale and speed to power their AI workloads, sparking investor optimism.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Lumen’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 47 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for Lumen and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 6 days ago when the stock dropped 3.9% on the news that the company announced its Chief Accounting Officer and Controller, Andrea Genschaw, will resign effective September 23, 2025.
Ms. Genschaw is leaving to take on a Chief Financial Officer role at another publicly traded company, and her departure is not the result of any disagreement with Lumen. In line with a long-term succession plan, the company's Board of Directors appointed Donald Holt, an internal finance leader, as her successor. The executive change occurs amidst a challenging financial outlook for the company. Analysts estimate Lumen's revenue will decrease by 3.8% per year over the next three years, contrasting sharply with expectations for significant growth across the rest of the telecom industry. This backdrop of declining revenue may make investors more sensitive to changes in key leadership positions.
Lumen is up 14.2% since the beginning of the year, but at $6.41 per share, it is still trading 36.7% 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 $624.27.
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