A $1,000 Investment in This AI Stock Became $22,715. The Real Story Is the Last 12 Months

Quick Read

  • Lumentum (LITE) turned a $1,000 investment into $22,715 over 10 years, a 2,171% return dwarfing the S&P 500’s 262%.

  • AI hyperscalers replaced Apple (AAPL) Face ID as Lumentum’s growth engine, pushing Q4 revenue up 109% year over year to $1.01 billion.

  • Nearly all decade-long gains arrived in the past 12 months, yet the stock already dropped 19% in a single week on an optical sector selloff.

  • Just released. Our analysts combed the entire stock market and named the ten best stocks to buy right now, and Lumentum didn’t make the cut. Enter your email to see the names that beat LITE. The report is free. Enter your email and see if any of your stocks made the cut.

From Face ID Lasers to AI Data Center Plumbing

Lumentum (NASDAQ:LITE) makes lasers and optical parts that move data as light instead of electricity. It was spun off from JDS Uniphase in August 2015. For years its best-known product was the VCSEL chip behind Face ID 3D sensing for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), and it also sold telecom lasers. Results swung with smartphone cycles and carrier spending, so this was a cyclical mid-cap component supplier.

A digital graphic set against a blue background shows various financial charts, including bar graphs and line graphs, with an overall upward trend. A large white arrow points diagonally upwards from the bottom left to the top right. Superimposed across the middle is a stylized optical fiber cable, depicted as a bundle of glowing blue and teal strands, suggesting high-speed data transmission. The image conveys themes of technological advancement and market growth.
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AI changed who buys from Lumentum. Hyperscalers building giant compute clusters started replacing copper with optical links. That turned Lumentum into a key supplier of laser chips, cloud transceivers and optical circuit switches (OCS). The Cloud Light acquisition gave it more transceiver capacity. Fiscal 2026 revenue reached $3.014B, up 83.22%, and fourth-quarter revenue hit $1.01 billion, up 109% year over year.

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Your $1,000 Became $22,715, and Most of It Came Late

1-Year Return

  • Initial Investment: $1,000

  • Current Value: $5,725.40

  • Total Return: 472.54%

  • S&P 500 (same period): $1,162.80 (16.28%)

5-Year Return

  • Initial Investment: $1,000

  • Current Value: $10,640.90

  • Total Return: 964.09%

  • Annualized Return: 60.47%

  • S&P 500 (same period): $1,742.40 (74.24%)

10-Year Return

——

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Why Didn’t LITE Make The Top 10 List?

24/7 Wall St has helped investors make money for over two decades, and our top analysts just finished ranking the definitive Top 10 Stocks To Buy Now. Not the ten biggest companies. Not the ten everyone is arguing about. The ten best stocks to buy right now.

And LITE didn’t make the cut!

The report is free, and you can see why we think each stock is a top investment today.

Enter Your Email and See the Ten →

——

  • Initial Investment: $1,000

  • Current Value: $22,714.90

  • Total Return: 2171.49%

  • Annualized Return: 36.66%

  • S&P 500 (same period): $3,617.60 (261.76%)

Lumentum outperformed the index over all three periods, and most of the gain arrived recently. Shares cost $86.39 in October 2021 and only $160.56 four years later. Most of the decade’s gain came in the last twelve months, when the AI expansion reached Lumentum’s order book. A decade-long holder needed years of patience before the return showed up.

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