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Lumen Technologies Inc, known by the ticker symbol LUMN, is a large-cap telecom services company, operating in the communication services business sector. This is my first report on Lumen for this Vital portfolio or any of my previous six dividend dog portfolios.

With 450,000 route miles of fiber, including over 35,000 route miles of subsea fiber connecting Europe, Asia, and Latin America, Lumen Technologies is one of the United States’ largest telecommunications carriers serving global enterprises.

Its merger with Level 3 further shifted the company’s operations toward businesses (over 70% of revenue) and away from its legacy consumer business.

Lumen offers businesses a full menu of communications services, providing colocation and data center services, data transportation, and end-user phone and Internet service.

On the consumer side, Lumen provides broadband and phone service across 37 states, where it has 4.5 million broadband customers.

Three key data points gauge any dividend equity or fund such as Lumen Technologies Inc:The company was formerly known as CenturyLink, Inc. and changed its name to Lumen Technologies, Inc. in September 2020. Lumen Technologies, Inc. was incorporated in 1968 and is headquartered in Monroe, Louisiana.

(1) Price

(2) Dividends

(3) Returns

Those three basic keys best tell whether any company has made, is making, and will make money.

LUMN Price

Lumen’s price per share was $11.47 as of Thursday's market close. One year ago its price was $12.71. Therefore, Lumen’s share price fell $1.24 or about 9.75% in the past year.

If Lumen’s stock trades in the range of $9.00 to $16.00 this next year, its recent $11.47 share price might rise by $0.53 to reach $12.00 by April 18, 2023. My $0.53 upside estimate is $0.75 over the median of ten analysts annual target prices for brokerage houses tracking LUMN.

LUMN Dividends

LUMN’s most recently declared quarterly dividend of $0.25 was  paid March 18th to shareholders on record as of March 7th.  Assuming an Annual payout of $1.00 holds true in the coming year, the payout per share yields 8.72% at yesterday's $11.47 closing price.

Lumen Technologies Inc paid its first quarterly dividend payout in June, 2020. That stretch marks 2 years come June.

LUMN Returns

Adding the $1.00 Lumen Technologies Inc annual dividend to the estimated one-year price upside of $0.53 shows a $1.53 potential gross gain, per share, to be reduced by any costs to trade Lumen shares.

At yesterday's $11.47 price per share, a little UNDER $1000 would buy 87 shares.

A $10 broker fee (if charged) would be paid half at purchase and half at sale and might cost us about $0.115 per share.

Subtract that maybe $0.115 brokerage cost from my estimated $1.53 gross gain estimate per share results in a net gain of $1.415 X87 shares = $123.11 for a 12.31% net gain on a $997.89 investment.

So it is that Lumen Technologies Inc (LUMN): shows a possible 12.31% net gain including a 8.72% forward looking dividend yield.

Over the next year at this time our $1000 investment in Lumen Technologies Inc might generate $87.20 cash dividends alone. Note that a single share of LUMN stock bought at yesterday's $11.47 price is over $7.5 times less than the anticipated dividend income from our $1000.00 invested. So, by my dogcatcher ideal, this may be the time to buy LUMN shares. The estimated next-year dividend from $1K invested is currently  7.6 times greater than yesterday's single share price. Consider yourself alerted. It's a sign. Go for the dividend!

All of the estimates above are speculation based on the past history of Lumen Technologies Inc. Only time and money invested in this stock will determine its market value.