That stock is Lumentum and it's part of the EasyAssetManagement-managed EasyETFs range, including exposure through the EasyETFs AI World AMETF and the EasyETFs Global Equity AMETF.
And as of 12 May 2026, it had grown 1,231.86% over the past 12 months and 337% over the past six months.
The more interesting story is how Lumentum found its place in the portfolio, and what it tells us about the way EasyAssetManagement looks at long-term themes like artificial intelligence.
Because when a stock grows by more than 1,200% in a year, the natural question is not only what happened to the share price. It is also what the team saw in the business, the industry, and the theme before that growth became so visible.
For many investors, the AI conversation starts with the familiar names. The model builders. The chip designers. The companies launching tools people can see and use.
However, the AI build-out also depends on a large and complex physical layer. AI needs data centres, networking, power, cooling, storage and the ability to move huge amounts of data at high speed.
This is where Lumentum becomes important.
Lumentum sits within the broader optics space, which has become a critical layer of the AI infrastructure build-out. In simple terms, optics helps data move using light over fibre.
As Choni Goldfein from EasyAssetManagement explains, raw computational power or processing resources has scaled rapidly, but that alone does not deliver AI workloads. Tens of thousands of GPUs need to exchange data at speed, and moving that data efficiently has become central to the way AI data centres operate.
Copper has served the industry for many years, but as speeds rise and distances grow, its performance becomes more limited. Light over fibre can handle these requirements more efficiently, with higher performance and lower power draw across the distances that AI workloads demand.
That is the layer Lumentum helps enable.
In Q1 2026, the EasyETFs AI World AMETF returned 6.35%, while the Morningstar Global Artificial Intelligence Select Index declined 2.33%. The recent commentary links that difference to the portfolio’s emphasis on upstream infrastructure enablers, rather than only software and application-layer names, which were under pressure during the period.
The EasyAI fund line sits above the benchmark line from inception, and the table shows 42.02% since inception for EasyAI compared with 15.69% for the benchmark. The same page notes that Lumentum was the portfolio’s largest position and the standout performer with a 90.7% quarterly gain.
That quarterly performance was already meaningful. The more recent one-year figure gives the story even more weight, with Lumentum growing 1,231.86% over 12 months, as of 13 May.
EasyAssetManagement takes a thematic approach to investing. The team identifies structural forces shaping the global economy, then looks for companies that may be well placed to benefit from those forces over time.
And we all know that AI is one of those structural themes.
The important part is how broadly the team looks at the AI value chain. It also depends on the inputs that allow AI to operate at scale. That includes the infrastructure inside and around the data centre.
Within the EasyETFs AI World AMETF and the EasyETFs Global Equity AMETF, EasyAssetManagement has maintained exposure to AI and AI infrastructure. Within that allocation, optics is one of the layers the team views as well positioned as AI scales and AI capital expenditure continues.
Lumentum became a key expression of that view. It sits in a part of the market benefiting from rising demand for high-speed optical components, supported by hyperscaler spending and the broader AI data centre build-out.
The Q1 commentary from the team notes that Lumentum’s rally reflected accelerating hyperscaler demand for high-speed optical components, as well as a strategic investment and supply agreement with Nvidia. This positioned the company at the centre of the AI data centre interconnect build-out.
That is the kind of portfolio thinking this story brings into focus. It starts with the theme, then asks what the theme needs in order to scale.
Lumentum was not the only sign of this theme showing up in the EasyAssetManagement range.
In Q1 2026, the EasyETFs Global Equity AMETF returned 7.86% in rand terms, while the MSCI All Country World Index declined 0.65%. The commentary states that outperformance was driven by structural positioning in AI infrastructure and defence names, with hyperscaler capital expenditure accelerating during the period.
This shows that the Lumentum position was part of a wider portfolio view. EasyAssetManagement was not only looking for a single company that could benefit from AI. The team was positioning across areas of the market connected to long-term structural demand.
The Q1 review also highlights other global contributors, including Argan, which gained 74.1%, and Ciena, which gained 66.0%. Ciena also benefited from bandwidth demand linked to hyperscaler and AI infrastructure spending.
Taken together, these holdings show how AI infrastructure can appear across different parts of a portfolio.It continues to favour enablers where supply constraints, pricing power and earnings visibility are strongest.
A 1,231.86% one-year increase is unusual. It is also important to say clearly that a return like this should not be treated as normal or expected.
Share prices can rise quickly, and they can also fall quickly. Past performance does not guarantee future performance.
Still, the Lumentum story is useful because it shows how thematic investing can work when the analysis goes deeper than the headline trend.
The team did not only look at AI as a broad category. They looked at what AI needs in order to grow, where bottlenecks could appear, and which companies may be positioned in critical parts of the value chain.
The data tells the story clearly. Lumentum grew 1,231.86% over one year. In Q1 2026, the EasyETFs AI World AMETF returned 6.35%, while its benchmark declined 2.33%. The EasyETFs Global Equity AMETF returned 7.86% over the same quarter, ahead of the MSCI ACWI, which declined 0.65%.
The Q1 performance review also names Lumentum as the EasyETFs AI World AMETF’s largest position and standout performer for the quarter.
A winning stock sat inside the portfolio, and that holding reflected a clear view on AI infrastructure. A 1,232% one-year growth number will always catch attention. The lasting lesson is found in the thinking behind the holding.
Sometimes the most interesting opportunities begin with a simple question:
What does the future need in order to work?
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