Jim Cramer Discusses the 90% First Quarter Rally for Lumentum Holdings

Lumentum Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LITE) is among the stocks in focus as Jim Cramer reviewed the S&P 500’s top performers and the Nasdaq 100’s biggest laggards for the first quarter. Cramer mentioned the company’s recent addition to the S&P 500, as he remarked:

Next up, the second-best performer in the S&P was Lumentum Holdings. That’s a fiber optics play that just got added to the index last week, hence the 90.7% gain in the first quarter after the stock quadrupled last year. As long as the AI data center build-out continues unabated, I think these fiber optics stocks can keep winning, although maybe not as much as they’ve been winning over the last 15 months. Still, good for them. Welcome to the big show, Lumentum.

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Lumentum Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LITE) designs and sells optical and photonic products, including lasers and components, for cloud networking, data centers, and industrial applications. Cramer mentioned the company during the March 12 episode and said:

If you’re looking for groups to buy into weakness as rising oil prices crush the stock market, you can do a lot worse than the data center suppliers. Later this month, two optical companies are joining the S&P 500: Coherent, which we spoke to earlier this week, and Lumentum. Now, both of them are getting $2 billion investment from NVIDIA, but Lumentum’s been the better performer. It’s up nearly 900% over the past 12 months, despite an 8% decline today as part of that broader tech-led sell-off.

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