Lumen price target raised to $2 from $1 at BofA

BofA analyst David Barden raised the firm’s price target on Lumen to $2 from $1 and keeps an Underperform rating on the shares after “mixed” Q2 results and the announcement of a $5B private network construction deal. While “prepared to give LUMN incremental credit per our calculations in the future should incremental deals someday emerge,” the firm contends that “AI hype aside, revenue trends will continue to grind downward as does EBITDA.” The stock move from $1 to $7 in the past weeks, even as the bonds still trade at 40c to 70c on the dollar, “simply looks untethered to our fundamental assessment of the business,” the analyst tells investors.