Zoomed – Earlybirds Invest

Beaten-down telecom stock Lumen Technologies (LUMN 12.37%) wasn’t looking so battered on Wednesday. In fact, the shares jumped more than 12% higher in price on news that a sports media company would be harnessing its technology to broadcast live games. Lumen’s leap was far more pronounced than the S&P 500 index’s 0.2% increase on that Hump Day trading session.

Scoring a touchdown with a college sports broadcaster

Wednesday morning, Lumen announced that it and Pac-12 Enterprises, the broadcasting unit of the Pac-12 college football conference, are teaming up this season. The broadcaster will use Lumen’s network-as-a-service (NaaS) technology to deliver the conference’s games to viewers of the highly competitive league.

Football player on the field at night clutching a ball.

Image source: Getty Images.

Lumen said this is to begin as soon as this Saturday, with the Washington State versus Idaho contest.

The company did not supply any financial particulars of its new arrangement with Pac-12 Enterprises, nor did it speculate how it might affect fundamentals like revenue. Regardless, Lumen’s success in roping in a high-profile corporate customer with demanding connectivity needs is a clear win for the company and quite the encouraging morale booster.

Assuming the tie-up is mutually beneficial, we can expect it to generate new business for Lumen for clients with similar data transmission requirements.

Lumen goes live

At the very least, we can expect media companiess that broadcast content like live athletics to consider partnering with Lumen.

In the press release touting the Pac-12 Enterprises deal, Lumen quoted its CTO Dave Ward as saying that its client “can instantly dial up bandwidth — delivering the speed, reliability, and control that modern productions demand.“

The dollars rolled in

Dollar General delivered its first-quarter figures Tuesday morning, and investors couldn’t wait to pile into its shares.

Person shopping in a grocery store aisle.

Image source: Getty Images.

This was understandable, because those fundamentals were solid. The retailer’s net sales climbed more than 5% higher year over year to land at $10.4 billion. This was on the back of a 2%-plus rise in same-store sales, always a core performance metric in the retail industry.

Profitability headed north too, with GAAP net income rising almost 8% to slightly under $392 million. In per-share terms, Dollar General earned $1.78.

Both headline figures topped the consensus analyst estimates. On average, pundits tracking the stock were modeling $10.25 billion on the top line, and only $1.46 per share for net income.

Some of those pundits might not be underestimating Dollar General quite so much. A clutch of them raised their price targets on the stock, with a few even upgrading their recommendations.

One of the upgrades was enacted by Oppenheimer‘s Rupesh Parikh, who now feels the company is worthy of an overperform (buy) rating at $130 per share, where previously it was only rated a perform (hold).

Solid and sustainable

According to reports, Parikh was not only impressed by Dollar General’s ability to sustain 2% to 3% comparable sales growth figures, he feels it’s an excellent play in a recessionary environment. That’s been a persistent fear lately of numerous economists and more than a few investors, given the current shakiness in the global and domestic economies.

Dollar General definitely seems as if it’s on a roll, and it might just become a hot, go-to retailer if those gloomy predictions come true. It’s absolutely a stock to consider for our times.

Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.