MW Lumen's stock soars after a purchase by the CEO, who has a good track record

By Emily Bary

After the telecommunications stock suffered its worst drop in years, CEO Kate Johnson bought the dip. Some of her past insider purchases have proved very well timed.

Lumen CEO Kate Johnson saw a buying opportunity in the telecommunications stock's sharp selloff this week.

Investors are taking notice after Lumen Technologies CEO Kate Johnson bought the dip.

Johnson purchased about $500,000 worth of the telecommunications company's shares on Thursday, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Her purchase of 78,685 shares at an average price of about $6.35 came shortly after Lumen's stock (LUMN) suffered its worst one-day drop in over two years in the wake of its earnings report. The shares fell 21.6% on Wednesday and lost another 6% on Thursday but were bouncing nearly 20% in Friday's session.

Johnson's "recent open-market stock purchase reflects her continued confidence in Lumen's long-term strategy and the value the company is creating through its transformation," a Lumen spokesperson told MarketWatch.

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One of Johnson's past Lumen stock purchases proved incredibly well timed. When shares fell to 97 cents in November 2023, Johnson scooped up stock. The purchase came at what turned out to be essentially the stock's trough. It's up about 670% since then.

A May 2024 purchase also ended up paying off within a few months.

"This is not the first time Kate has personally invested in Lumen shares, underscoring her strong belief in the company's future as a digital networking services leader driving enterprise growth and innovation for a multi-cloud, AI economy," the Lumen spokesperson said on Friday.

Johnson owns about 8.6 million shares directly and 3.4 million more indirectly through a spousal trust, according to the latest SEC filing.

Lumen has been pivoting its business toward serving more artificial-intelligence use cases, and "the market has clearly started to think of Lumen as an AI play," MoffettNathanson analyst Nick Del Deo said in a note to clients on Tuesday.

"At the margin, AI-driven demand has the potential to shift its business more than traditional sources of demand," he added. "To support the current stock price, however, we need to see a meaningful inflection in revenue growth, from AI or otherwise."

See also: Lumen says it has a new asset in tow as it chases more AI business (from July 2025)

-Emily Bary

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February 06, 2026 12:34 ET (17:34 GMT)

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