Corning: If The World Of The Future Is Made Of Glass, This Company Looks Shatterproof

Summary

Corning is the most innovative glass company in the world! Yawn.

The balance sheet looks fantastic, with dividend growth set for years to come.

In a future made of glass, can Corning deliver on the growth it has foreshadowed for years?

Corning, Inc. (GLW) is at its core a glass company, (don't stop reading! I promise it gets better) which in the age of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Facebook (NASDAQ:FB), Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) & Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) always illicits blank stares and muffled laughter at cocktail parties when discussing top stock picks...

I need some new friends.

Corning is not your average boring glass company, it is a tech company, draped in jeans and a tee shirt. And it may be one of the best macro trend stocks currently available in the market.

In this article I will discuss:

1) A brief history lesson of the company.

2) Take a look at current valuation, potential dividend growth and its balance sheet.

3) A look into the potential future and explore the macro trends, I believe will power this stock for a minimum of 15 to 20 years into the future.

The Company

Corning Glass Works was founded in 1851 hence the ticker symbol (GLW). The firm also established one of the first industrial research labs in the USA in 1908. So, R&D is firmly implanted in the company DNA.

You may be most familiar with their historical products in the consumer sector, IE Corningware, pyrex etc., sorry to disappoint you but this consumer division was divested in 1998. Corning has a long and interesting history slinging silica, whether it be supplying the glass for Thomas Edison's first light bulb, glass panels for the first televisions, even supplying the glass windshields for the space shuttles.

Corning seems to have had a hand in quite a few turning points and major leaps in mankind's industrial revolution! And through it all Corning always has been about 10 years ahead of its time... Leading to a hit and miss history, IE its first foray into lighter and stronger automotive windshields "Chemcor" in 1962 (this is now gorilla glass!), its first fiber optic venture in the 70s or its second in the late 90s, among others.