New York, February 28, 2026, 14:15 (EST) — Market closed.
- GLW closed Friday up 0.05% at $150.38 after a 6.31% drop a day earlier
- CEO Wendell Weeks exercised options and sold 137,514 shares at an average $155.37, a filing showed
- Corning’s CFO is due to give a business update on March 3 at a Morgan Stanley conference
Corning Incorporated (GLW) shares closed nearly flat on Friday after the company said its CFO will provide business updates at a Morgan Stanley conference on March 3. The stock ended up 0.05% at $150.38, steadying after a 6.31% drop a day earlier. It was last down 0.09% after hours at $150.25. 1
With U.S. markets shut for the weekend, the next test is whether Monday brings buyers back after the late-week swing. Corning sits in the middle of a market argument about telecom and data-center buildouts, and traders tend to punish the stock quickly when that story wobbles.
The timing matters because management comments are now one of the few near-term inputs investors can trade. Corning has several moving parts across glass and optical connectivity, and a short update can change the way investors read order momentum into the next quarter.
A Form 4 filing showed CEO Wendell P. Weeks exercised options for 137,514 shares and sold the same number on Feb. 26 at a weighted average price of $155.3721. The filing also showed a gift of 16,694 shares. 2
Corning also went ex-dividend on Feb. 26 for a $0.28 quarterly payout, meaning buyers from that date do not receive the next dividend. The company’s dividend history shows the payment is scheduled for March 30 for shareholders of record on Feb. 27. 3
Earlier in the week, Citi lifted its price target to $170 from $120 and kept a buy rating, while putting Corning on an “upside 30-day catalyst watch” ahead of the Optical Fiber Communication conference on March 17-19. The bank called Corning and Lumentum “pillars” in the AI optical networking ecosystem and said it expects positive news from the event. 4
Corning has been pitching more fiber deeper into servers as data-center operators chase speed and power savings. “The rapid growth of AI is really increasing demand for faster, more efficient technology,” Mike O’Day, a senior vice president and general manager in optical communications, said in a company report last year, while Claudio Mazzali, senior vice president of technology, said co-packaged optics could “significantly reduce power consumption” and “improve data speeds.” 5
That framing has pulled Corning closer to optical-component peers and network suppliers as investors try to map data-center spending into orders for fiber, cable and connectivity hardware. Lumentum has been one of the names used as a read-through in recent notes going into the March event calendar.
But the near-term picture can still swing the other way. Corning’s end markets are cyclical, and telecom operators and cloud builders can delay orders quickly; the stock’s recent moves show how fast expectations can reset.
Next up is the March 3 conference slot, with investors listening for any shift in tone on demand, pricing and capacity. After that, the market’s next hard dates are the OFC conference on March 17-19 and the March 30 dividend payment.
