13. Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW)
Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) was among the stocks on Jim Cramer’s Mad Money radar as he taught investors how to profit from the upcoming wave of takeovers. When a caller inquired about the stock, Cramer commented:
Okay, here’s the deal. We actually sold some for the Trust today. It’s been a big win. I just castigated myself over Microsoft, over NVIDIA, over Apple, over Meta. What else? How about Amazon?… We own a lot of Corning too.
Corning Incorporated (NYSE:GLW) develops optical fiber, cables, and related hardware for telecommunications, and produces glass substrates for displays used in TVs, computers, and mobile devices. During the May 27 episode, Cramer highlighted the thought process behind adding the company’s stock to the Charitable Trust’s portfolio. The Mad Money host said:
When I look at the winners, though, I invariably find the same pattern. These stocks have rallied, often gigantically, before I bought them, and I did not let that fact stop me from purchasing them. Meanwhile, my biggest missed opportunities were stocks that had run where I let the price scare me away, and that is what made me so furious. Let’s start with a couple I did right if you don’t mind… Corning, yeah, GLW…. Here’s a company I hadn’t thought about in ages. I didn’t know what they were up to other than making the glass for my cellphone. Then on September 12th, 2025, we went to Harrodsburg, Kentucky, where Corning makes the glass for that, and I listened to the formidable Wendell Weeks talk about how Corning’s fiber was starting to take a lot of share in the data center. I was down there to talk to Apple, but I’m listening…
I only knew that copper ruled in the data center because it’s cheap and conducts better both the power distribution and the high-frequency signals. But Wendell was patient with me. He walked me through things. He calmly explained that glass is superior to copper when it comes to speed, cybersecurity. It doesn’t have corrosion. He said that’s enough to displace copper, both as a way to connect separate chips and as a way to connect transistors within a chip. And those are gigantic markets. My first reaction, oh, I thought, I said, wait a second, Corning had just rallied from $52 to 77 bucks. I had missed it. Too bad. Oh, I wish I had it earlier…
But then I said, wait a second, no, no, the CEO’s conviction’s so fundamental, his knowledge of what could happen was so crystal clear, I had to buy it. I just had to. So what did we do? We bought Corning for the Charitable Trust at $77, and you know what? The stock’s now $190. Even after it doubled, it turned out to be cheap as NVIDIA bought the right to take a stake in Corning for $3.2 billion. Good thing I didn’t let the stock’s relentless rally scare me away from buying it for the Charitable Trust.
