Lumen Technologies (LUMN -2.17%) stock soared again in Wednesday's trading. The telecom's share price ended the daily session up 32.6%, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. Shares had been up as much as 56.6% earlier in the day.
Lumen reported mixed second-quarter results after the market closed yesterday, but the company issued some very encouraging guidance. In addition to the promising new forecast, the stock also got a boost from a surge of bullish coverage from analysts.
Lumen misses earnings but beats on sales in Q2
Lumen recorded a non-GAAP (adjusted) loss per share of $0.13 on revenue of $3.27 billion in the second quarter. For comparison, the average Wall Street target had called for the business to post an adjusted loss of $0.04 per share on sales of $3.25 billion.
The company's sales fell 10.7% year over year in the quarter, and the business swung into a loss after having posted a profit of $0.10 per share in last year's second quarter. While there wasn't much sign of an immediate turnaround momentum in the Q2 report, investors were very bullish on management's forward guidance.
Lumen stock is on fire
With its Q2 report, Lumen raised its full-year free cash flow (FCF) target to between $1 billion and $1.2 billion. Previously, the company had guided for FCF to come in between $100 million and $300 million.
Along with the huge increase for its FCF target, investors are excited about commentary surrounding new fiber deals for the company. Prior to the earnings release, Lumen announced that it had recently secured new fiber contracts worth roughly $5 billion -- and that it might have an addition $7 billion worth of deals in the pipeline. Comments from management in the company's conference call continued to support an optimistic outlook on the fiber front.
Lumen received a swell of positive coverage from analysts on Wall Street following the report, helping to power even more bullish momentum. The company's share price is now up 549.5% over the last month.
