From an initial public offering (IPO) price near $10 in 2021 to its post-IPO nadir closer to $2 earlier this year, direct-to-cell (DTC) satellite communications company AST SpaceMobile (NASDAQ: ASTS) has taken investors on quite the wild ride these past few years.

Thanks largely to support from big telecom names like AT (NYSE: T) and (NYSE: VZ), however, AST stock went parabolic in 2024. The company's gone from operating a single experimental BlueWalker communications satellite (comsat) to building five fully functional comsats ready to launch in September. It's won Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approval to launch and operate the satellites and is looking very likely to begin beta service before the end of the year.

Oh! And AST's stock price has exploded 13x in size, from $2.21 back in April to more than $29 this past Thursday. Today, I'll argue that the next step in AST's saga should be to sell a lot of that stock, cash in the gains it's made this year -- and thereby secure its future for years to come.

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Source Fool.com