Lumen & MACom schedules, Resonant update, and more ?3

11:51 13-Apr-21

Lumen Technologies has scheduled its first quarter report for the evening of May 5th.  The average of analyst estimates is for 41 cents of EPS from $5.1b of revenue, declining to $5.0b this quarter.  LUMN has come down from highs above $14 around the last dividend, as anticipated, and I'm happily rebuilding positions after having taken profits from the trading systems spike at the end of January.  Community fiber remains a vague threat, but Lumen's footprint is mainly in states that deter such initiatives and I continue to see federal change in this area as a long shot.  I've also been keeping an eye on Cyxtera, which expected to close its SPAC merger in late June or early July.  That should benefit Lumen, assuming it has gotten in under the wire.

MACom has also scheduled its fiscal second quarter report for the morning of April 29th.  Analyst estimates average out to 47 cents of EPS from $150M of revenue, increasing slightly to $151M this quarter.  I will certainly prioritize the BGC report that same morning, as MTSI is still to pricey for my taste, despite good execution and a very favorable macro environment.

Resonant has also issued a business update, with the main new information being that its customers shipped 8.6M RF filters in the first quarter.  This is a 25% sequential increase and brings the total shipped to over 61M.  However, there was no word on actual impact to sales.  So, we'll have to wait and see to what extend these were pre-paid royalties.  Consequently, I don't see this having a big effect on stock price and worry that the update is intended to support share sales.  The patent portfolio has also grown by 20 so far this year, to 320, with 15 new and 150 existing patents focused on XBAR.

I've been even more in the habit of ignoring eMagin press releases, but a brief notice that the company's auditor expressed a "going concern" opinion with the full-year report deserves mention.  It's not the end of the world, but I had already expressed my own overbought opinion at that point.

Conversely, PPL's EPA award is also insignificant, but a chance to reiterate that I expect its upcoming transactions to generate at least minimal upside with substantial yield, and quite possibly MUCH more.