Some stocks just refuse to die.
They get written off as relics of a previous boom, left for dead by the hot-money crowd, and then — when nobody is looking — they quietly reinvent themselves and start printing money all over again. I’ve watched this movie before, and right now I’m convinced we’re in the opening credits of the sequel.
Josh Brown, the CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management and one of the most followed voices in finance, just put a name back on his “Best Stocks in the Market” list that he first fell in love with a quarter-century ago: Ciena Corporation (CIEN).
Yes, that Ciena. The same company that was the darling of the original internet build-out in the late 1990s. The one that crashed 95% when the bubble popped. The one most millennials have never even heard of.
Only this time the story is completely different — and potentially much, much bigger.
From Dot-Com Darling to AI Infrastructure Powerhouse
Let me take you back for a second.
When I was cutting my teeth in this business, Ciena was the stock every aggressive growth broker wanted to own. It was the leader in optical networking gear — the picks-and-shovels play for the first internet explosion. The company went public in 1997 and promptly ran from $23 to almost $1,500 (split-adjusted) in less than three years.
Then came the hangover. The stock lost virtually everything in the 2000-2002 bear market. A lot of people — myself included at times — figured that was the end of the story.
Fast-forward to 2025 and something fascinating is happening. All those hyperscale data centers powering ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and every other large language model don’t magically talk to each other through Wi-Fi and hopes and dreams. They need insane amounts of high-speed fiber connectivity. And guess who still owns a massive chunk of that market?
That’s exactly. Ciena never went away. They just got boring for twenty years while they rebuilt the balance sheet, dominated their niche, and waited for the next once-in-a-generation spending cycle.
That cycle is here. And it’s being fueled by artificial intelligence.
The Numbers Don’t Lie — They Scream
Ciena’s most recent quarter (fiscal Q3 2025) was nothing short of staggering:
- Revenue +29.4% year-over-year to $1.22 billion
- Non-telecom customers (think cloud giants) = 53% of total revenue
- Adjusted EPS +91% to $0.67
- Record order backlog significantly higher than current run-rate revenue
- Free cash flow margin hitting 11%
Translation: The cloud providers and enterprises are throwing money at optical networking upgrades because the current infrastructure literally cannot handle the data volumes AI is creating.
Think about it this way — Nvidia makes the brains, Ciena builds the nervous system. You can have the fastest GPU chips on the planet, but if the data can’t move between racks (or between cities) at 800G+ speeds, the whole thing grinds to a halt.
“You can build all the data centers and stack all the chips you want, but if the components of the infrastructure don’t talk to each other at high speeds, it doesn’t work.”
– Josh Brown, December 2025
That single sentence explains everything you need to know about why this formerly forgotten name is suddenly showing up on every growth manager’s radar again.
The Chart Is Saying the Same Thing
Technical analysis isn’t everything, but when the fundamentals and the tape are singing in harmony, you pay attention.
CIEN recently pulled back sharply during the broader “AI fatigue” sell-off in August-October. The stock dropped from the low $190s all the way to the mid-$170s. Scary if you were over-leveraged, but textbook healthy if you understand bull market corrections.
The 50-day moving average held like concrete. Buyers swarmed in, volume spiked, and the stock has since ripped 25%+ in a straight line with barely a pause. RSI has reset from overbought (80+) to the mid-60s — classic re-accumulation territory before the next leg higher.
From a risk-management perspective it’s almost too clean:
- Traders: stop just under $172–174 (recent swing low)
- Long-term investors: give it room down to $150 if necessary
- Upside target: new all-time highs north of $200 in 2026 feels conservative
I’ve rarely seen a setup this attractive in a company with this kind of fundamental tailwind.
Baker Hughes — The Other Name Quietly Breaking Out
While everyone is fighting over the usual AI suspects, Josh also highlighted another under-the-radar energy technology play Baker Hughes (BKR).
Yes, energy feels like the most hated sector on earth sometimes, but that’s exactly when the smart money starts tiptoeing in.
Baker Hughes has spent the last few years pivoting from pure-play oilfield services into LNG, carbon capture, and industrial energy tech. The pending acquisition of Chart Industries (expected mid-2026) will only accelerate that transformation.
The stock has spent literally all of 2025 banging its head against $50 resistance. Round number. Psychological barrier. Call it what you want — it’s exhausting the sellers.
Josh’s metaphor was perfect: “Picture Jack Nicholson in The Shining.” Sooner or later that axe is coming through the door.
Once BKR clears $50 on volume, the path of least resistance is sharply higher. There’s almost no overhead supply left after years of consolidation.
Morgan Stanley Keeps Rolling
Quick update on another name Josh has liked for months — Morgan Stanley (MS).
They flagged it in November when it was down 9% from highs and sitting right on the 50-day moving average. Classic spot to add. Since then the stock has sprinted back to within spitting distance of a new all-time high.
Investment banking fees are surging, wealth management assets are at record levels, and trading revenue remains strong. In a market where the S&P keeps grinding higher, the brokers tend to outperform. MS remains one of the cleanest ways to play that theme.
Why This Matters Beyond Just Three Tickers
The bigger story here isn’t really about Ciena, Baker Hughes, or even Morgan Stanley individually.
It’s about capital cycles.
Every decade or two an entirely new infrastructure layer gets built. In the 1990s it was the internet backbone. In the 2010s it was mobile + cloud. Today it’s AI-centric data centers and the networking plumbing that ties them together.
The companies that survive the previous bust and stay lean during the quiet years are the ones that end up dominating the next boom. Ciena is the textbook example.
And the best part? Most retail investors still don’t own any of this theme outside of Nvidia. There’s a multi-year runway of discovery ahead.
I’ll leave you with this thought:
The stocks that make you the most money over a career are rarely the ones everyone is talking about today. They’re the ones nobody wants… until suddenly everyone needs them.
Ciena was that stock in 1999.
It’s looking a lot like that stock again in 2025.
See you in the fiber lane.
