Corning Glass

GLW

When is a tech stock not a tech company?

Corning Glass has a long history. Corning Incorporated is indeed a very old company, depending on where you really want to start: 1851 with Amory Houghton opening a small glass company or perhaps 1879 making glass for Edison’s light bulbs.

Certainly what I know Corning best for is “pyrex glass”: our measuring cups in our kitchens, something they have been doing since 1915.

Perhaps what most interests us today was Corning’s entry in fiber optics in 1970. Also products like “Gorilla Glass” for mobile device screens.

Basic stats I look at are:

Past three month gain of 38.2%

Past year gain of 274.2% (certainly a great year)

Past three year gain of 461.6% (recent history is good)

Past five year gain of 379.6% (if we do a simple divide by 5 (not accounting for compounding) we have an average of about 76% per year – I can live with that)

Certainly Corning’s fiber optic business has boomed along with the AI boom, but let’s take a moment to step back and see how Corning did in 2024. In 2024 Corning went from $47 per share to $85 per share. That’s an 80.8% increase in one year. That exceeds my criteria of aiming for stocks that earn over 25% per year. So Corning isn’t just an AI flash in the pan.

I look at where is the price currently between it’s past year low vs high and it’s sitting at 67%. Normally for bargains I’m looking to buy below 50% of the past year’s levels, but Corning is a solid growth stock so I’m happy with it above 50%.

Usually I’ll look at the “curve” too and see if the current price is simply a “peak surge”.

Earlier in the week, when I started to write this, Corning wasn’t priced where I would buy. It was simply a company worth knowing about and keeping an eye on. A mistake would be to buy it at it’s peak of $271.78, but now that it’s settling down again it’s worth seriously considering.

Currently at $198 it’s not a bad buy, but I’d aim for more like $175 to $180. Then sit back and wait a couple years.

Corning does pay a very tiny dividend too. Twenty eight cents a share per quarter. A bit over a half a percent per year.

Overall, I feel that “experts” are too focused in on short term: what will the stock do today, tomorrow, next week, next month? My advice is to think more like “What will the stock do next year? How about three years from now?”