$LITE

Feels like my $IQE thesis Feb this year got validated alongside $AXTI and others. (I still long on both) So I stopped covering them as much. But TLDR on updates: Early this year, IQE was a distressed but critical chokepoint in the optical supply chain with links to $LITE and others when I published my thesis on it. Since then: - $MTSI signed long term epiwafer supply agreements, took a stake in the company, now IQE is bank debt free (Macom has convertibles, but that's positive) - $TSEM signed agreements for InP epiwafers. - Management explicitly said its IQE agreement was signed to secure the "strategic III-V epiwafer supply required for that roadmap" - IQE signed another ~$14M mysterious AI DC contract. The only part that's still playing out with my earlier thesis is IQE converting their latent/underutilized capacity toward AI DC segment, to match peers like Landmark in the space (which takes time, like slightly over a year if I remember correctly). There's some national security implications that I'll avoid talking about that makes them more important. But basically: FY2025 revenue: £97.3m FY2026 guidance: over £126.5m They're rapidly growing again in the optical sector, out of bank debt/distressed liquidation state, and remains a critical chokepoint in Western optical supply chains. Now... with new agreements with your leading photonics companies for revenue growth, and players like Macom serving as a soft backstop. After a thesis gets validated, typically I just sit back and enjoy growth of a business.

@JoelLikesTurtle That's literally the earliest timeframe possible for CPO scale up early volumes if you look at $LITE and $COHR earnings. And giving that specific timeframe is actually extremely bullish.

My main takeaway was that your merchant CW laser suppliers seem to be EXTREMELY IMPORTANT now. But TLDR of $COHR earnings: "given the demand that we see in our DC business with transceivers, I don’t see any time in the near future where we would be selling indium phosphide lasers externally" - Ton more value placed on companies that sell InP lasers externally if $AAOI can't doesn't enough capacity for first gen-CPO deployments, $COHR not selling externally... I guess that's why $MTSI said a ton of customers are approaching them with urgency for InP CW DFB lasers (and they dont even have meaningful capacity coming online until EOY 2027) $AAOI -> Internal $COHR -> Internal Buyers -> fewer places to look for capacity. "Our backlog now extends out, fiscal 2027 is basically completely booked out. We are booked really through the end of calendar 2027" [ Massive massive demand visibility] - Coherent also mentioned LTAs spanning end of decade. So this kinda reinforces what $POET CEO said at their AGM that the "big 3" are fully sold out next 2 years. "we’re not constrained in the assembly and test capacity right now. We’re really just constrained by the ramp of the indium phosphide production" - Just for the bottleneck bros in terms of assembly/test not a bottleneck. "absolutely no push-out of CPO demand. In fact, it has been the opposite. We have seen demand increase and request from customers’ demand getting pulled in" "we continue to expect revenue from CPO for scale-up applications to start to flow in the second half of calendar 2027" - Big read through on other CPO players for scale up if $LITE, $COHR reaffirm revenue from CPO scale up coming h2027. - "quarterly revenue exceeding $3 billion by the end of fiscal 2027" - $COHR revenue go brrr So for regular numbers it's: - $2.046B revenue (+13.3% Q/Q, +33.8% Y/Y), main revenue ramp looks to be happening entering Q4 into 2027 - Non-GAAP gross margins: 40.2% Next quarter guide is: - Revenue: $2.2–$2.4B revenue - Non-GAAP gross margins: 39.5-41.5% Basically: $1.69B -> $1.81B -> $2.05B -> ~$2.30B -> $3.0B (end of FY 2027) ~39% -> 39.6% -> 40.2% -> ~40.5% (gross margins) For operating margins: 18.0% -> 19.5% -> 19.9% -> 20.3% -> 21.8% Little less impressed compared to $LITE margin growth in terms of profitability, but revenue scale for $COHR growing rapidly.

@mikealfred Bears are going back into hibernation after seeing all these AI earning reports from $NBIS to $LITE.

I said $LITE went from $3b to $60B+ over a 2-3 year timeframe, especially due from Cloud Light acquisition in late 2023, that multiplied TAM by 5x+. Since they started off in the EML laser / optical component chokepoint originally before M&A. $SIVE has the potential to do the same starting off in the CW laser chokepoint. But it does require something like a successful M&A down pluggables or optical engines/ELS. To capture more revenue off things like completed transceivers $AAOI, if they want to get to a similar scale. And my take was NASDAQ listing is necessary to unlock more funding to do so.

So this is just what I'm seeing with $SIVE and the CW DFB laser chokepoint right now. From optical earnings: 1. $LITE: unexpected demand and imbalance for UHP CW lasers. - Had ability to price up ASP for lasers. - Scale up CPO on track for H2 2027 shipments, called out any CPO scale up delay rumors as noise. Lumentum confirmed timelines (that CPO players like Sivers sold off of misleading reports from), high margins, and extreme demand for qualified CW lasers. 2. $AAOI: doesn’t have enough CW laser capacity because of too much optical transceiver demand. - Not meaningfully participating in first-gen CPO deployments, with $MTSI not looking like they're in it either but focusing on NPO. Haven't seen much with $SMTC after their HieFo acqusition. - Called lasers as the bottleneck within a 20-40% demand imbalance for transceivers. - Says customers approaching them every week asking them for supply + to move faster. AOI confirmed demand imbalances + bottlenecks for lasers. And we got an even smaller pool for first-gen CPO players. 3. Both $AAOI and $LITE claimed Chinese players were years behind for CPO lasers and far behind stated claims in qualified capacity. - $AAOI said 2-3 years+ behind with CPO lasers. - $LITE said they haven't seen anything like Chinese claims in terms of outputs (and no recourse if it's false). Reaffirms moat for CPO related lasers, and no flooding from some shortseller claims on the optical sector. 4. $MTSI said that many customers are approaching them with urgency due to the general supply shortage of indium phosphide DFB lasers. Again, puts Sivers in the that bottleneck, giving them likely more customer demand . Among $COHR ($72.54B), $LITE ($66.57B), $AVGO ($2.13T): It's very special you get one of the public 4 Western CPO leaders at a ~$1.5B MC with $SIVE. Feels like my thesis with both: - The CW bottleneck that I predicted - CW laser chokepoint (where there's only a few CPO players, at least for gen-1) Got validated from earnings, now it's just waiting for the inflection points of next optical architecture shifts.

$LITE earnings transcript TLDRs: - "Our visibility into the timing of CPO scale-up deployments has also sharpened. We remain confident in a demand ramp for our ultra-high-power laser chips in the second half of calendar 2027" H2 2027 start of CPO scale up ramp confirmed from Lumentum for their lead customer. - "We were recently given our first external light source, or ELS, module purchase for delivery by the second half of calendar 2027" ELS industry ramp timelines - "The NPO opportunity is completely additive for us, significantly increasing the optical TAM." More TAM for laser chokepoint club - "we expect the 1.6T transceiver uptake to intensify starting in fiscal Q1 and sustain through calendar 2027." - "Even in CW, we’ve been surprised at our ability to price up" Positive pricing power for $SIVE and the other CW laser players. - "As a result, we are able to command a nice price premium that we expect to sustain, as these Chinese if these Chinese guys come online. I caution people also, I think people are some of these Chinese laser suppliers are not delivering in the market today, so they have there is no recourse when they throw out these big numbers. We have not seen anything like that to date in terms of their output." Chinese players are more behind than markets expect, corroborated by $AAOI and $LITE. - "We are way behind in our shipments, unfortunately, on high-powered lasers" "The demand signal has increased, and we are very much further behind relative to our ability to supply." Extreme demand imbalance for UHP CW laser capacity, continued demand imbalance for EML. Shipping roughly +$50M year end -> $100m+ ("triple digit quarter") into much larger H2 2027 and 2028 scale up demand,. - "So what we are trying to do, I think, really in the last three months is secure even more substrate supply" (because of demand imbalance), "we found additional substrate help from $AXTI They are a great partner." Hello InP substrate bottleneck. TLDR: - Lumentum CPO scale up H2 2027 shipments got confirmed, dismissed any "delay" news as market "noise". (one delay report caused so much damage, and it took Nvidia, Lumentum, and all these companies weeks to do damage control). - CW lasers demand ramp second half of 2027 - Extreme demand imbalance for UHP CW laser capacity surprised Lumentum - UHP lasers commands very high margins and is able to price up CW laser capacity. - China further behind in the laser/capacity angle. Basically just validated timelines + demand/pricing for Western CW laser players. CW laser scarcity is already happening before the main volume ramp even begins...

Insane earnings today for the AI theme with $CRWV, $SMCI, and $LITE. Coreweave: Absurd ~$104B+ backlog, which doesn't include $25B+ of new customer agreements added in early Q3. Compute demand read through for Neoclouds is enormous (For Nebius, Iren and others) Supermicro: Absurd $65-72B in revenue guidance, adding $60B+ in new orders... AI DC buildout read through is just enormous. Lumentum: $808M -> $1.01B -> $1.25B revenue ramp, with operating margins growing quarter after quarter. Photonics players just keeps printing. TLDR: Every layer of the AI buildout goes brrrrr, and it's showing up in earnings.

$LITE earnings are out, very strong earnings: Revenue: $1.01B, +24.5% Q/Q, +109.3% Y/Y growth vs. ~$984.6M Adj. EPS: $3.23 vs. ~$2.95 Gross Margin (non-gaap): 50.4% / Operating margin (non-gaap) 36.6% Q1 FY2027 guidance is probably more important: Revenue: $1.225–1.275B vs. ~$1.16B Adj. EPS: $4.05–4.35 vs. ~$3.63 Operating margin (non-gaap) of 39.5% - 40.5% In terms of notes: Sees: "Increasing demand for ultra-high-power CPO lasers, an initial order for ELS modules" - Great read through on other CPO players like $SIVEF, $COHR, and others. (maybe not AAOI since they're missing out on first-gen deployments) - "Breath of NPO engagements are the first signs that optics are starting to penetrate in-rack connectivity, significantly upping our optical TAM" - Revenue projections "reaching our target model more than a quarter ahead of schedule." Extremely strong earnings as expected, you have revenue going from: $808M -> $1.01B -> $1.25B while operating margin keeps increasing... Just my first impressions. Most important thing is the earnings call coming up soon.

Now that markets are hosting a laser party again from $SIVE, OE Solutions, $LITE, Coherent, to $AAOI. There’s a pretty interesting study: Both from Fidelity and a UC Berkeley research paper, that the best investors are the ones who either… - Anecdotally forgot about their account (Fidelity) - Didn’t actively trade/overtrade (18.5% return from infrequent traders vs. 11.4%). Not any advice, but some of these anecdotes might be helpful to retail to read in general… Since I witnessed a lot capitulation off memory, photonics, or thematic volatility, just for retail not have positions on a sharp recovery. Having conviction also usually people in that “not overtrading” camp, since it helps to not overtrade in drops or see opportunities to cost average.

I think we already got too many hints from $AAOI earnings about demand 20-40% imbalance for optical transivers with lasers as a bottleneck. And $POET stating big 3 are completely sold out of capacity next 2 years during their AGM. I don’t give earnings up or down predictions since it’s a coin flip most of the time. But I can say that a lot of pricing happens before earnings, unless there’s something very unexpected. Regardless I expect $LITE earnings to come out really strong, and I primary use it as a read through for your other laser players.

Just some near term events: - OCP APAC tomorrow (Ayar, Lightmatter, $AMD, $NVDA) and your CPO players are giving announcements/updates. This should be a catalyst for certain optical players. - Earnings week: with $ASTS, $RKLB reporting today (space), $LITE on Tuesday (photonics), $NBIS in the middle of the week (Neocloud), and more. - Unitree IPO subscriptions opened up today and Listing is expected this month. Should be a potential catalyst for the humanoid + robotics sector if it opens up well eg. $CCXI. Fun week ahead.

Yes, I'm still bullish on memory like $MU / Samsung. As I said earlier, markets tend to rotate from bottleneck to bottleneck. This week it looks $AXTI to $LITE in the photonics sector is the focus again. The thing is... the primary thing that changed are the stock prices, followed by some narratives + updates sprinkled in here and there. For photonics: > We already knew $COHR / $LITE lasers were completely sold out for the next 2 years during July's drop. > We knew about demand imbalance from $AAOI from last quarter's earnings calls. Nothing deteriorated fundamentally during July's crash, other than listed price after liquidations. Yet tons of people called $AAOI a "scam" when it dropped to $75, or $AXTI a "scam" on its drop to $35... But are bullish again at $140 or $80, when the transciver/InP substrate bottleneck hasn't changed at all, but maybe even got worse... (eg. draft for US ban on new china optical transceivers, scale up demand projections) For Memory: I'm witnessing a lot of retail capitulation, but the same people I'm seeing were mega bullish after $MU signed 16 SCAs and gave exceptional projections a month ago. Or were celebrating Samsung having the highest operating profit in the world. There's updates here and there eg. Rubin Ultra with memory optimizations (which Nvidia strives for every generation), with prices no longer being hiked way above expectations to the extreme. But the operating income relative to MC is just absurd around current prices, especially memory becomes structural. And the demand imbalance should be even worse next year. People tend to capitulate and follow narratives when a sector drops (eg. Helium/LNG back in Iran war), even if the bottleneck or fundamental situation hasn't really changed much (eg. $SPCX Elon earnings call reiterating memory tightness). I can't tell others what to to do: But $AAOI at $140 and $AAOI at $75 are the same company. Samsung at a $1.5T MC and Samsung at a $980B MC are the same company. Just valuations and narratives (often noise) change, and markets rotate from sector to sector.

I usually make fun of sellside, but Rosenblatt has pretty goated channel checks on optical names, and their reports are one of the few I like talking about. $AAOI, $LITE, $SIVE, and the laser party has started to recover around the est. timing windows. eg. last month: "Multiple short sellers told them they will likely close their positions... late July and early August". They might have missed that they believed $AMD would be $AAOI's first CPO customer... since AAOI said they would be missing from first-gen CPO (maybe future gen?) But lot of their talking points about China CPO laser positioning (eg. 2-3 years behind) got corroborated word-for-word from AAOI earnings today.

Uhh I don’t want $SIVE to be acquired given how attractive their laser assets are. Since I see potential for them end up as the next $LITE. Honestly carving out OE solutions complete optical transceiver business or something similar that’s distressed from a private startup might be interesting. My guess is it comes after Nasdaq listing within next few quarters or so. I think the CEO knows what to do, so I’m just tagging along for the ride.

For now yes, because Lumilens has a direct hyperscaler customer and multi-billion dollar purchase agreements. While $SIVE is an upstream laser supplier. Sivers needs to work its way downstream to capture more TAM with selling optical engines, ELS, or complete optical transceivers like $LITE did after M&A eg. Cloud Light. My opinion is that it’s easier to move downstream than upstream as you seen with the limited amount of qualified laser suppliers out there.

I'm extremely bullish on $AAOI, it's one of my top holdings? But there's an unholy amount of things to unpack when AOI said they're not participating in first-gen CPO deployments because there's not enough capacity. 1. Independent CW DFB capacity, even less than markets thought. 2. Qualified CPO laser players, even less than markets thought. 3. I remember Rosenblatt thought $AAOI would be $AMD's first CPO customer, but might not be the case anymore... And since $LITE and $COHR are in camp $NVDA and sold out for next 2 years... Some other CPO players might be more valuable than others think.

Wow, there's gem after gem in $AAOI earnings for $SIVE + other laser player readthrough. 1. AAOI not meaningfully participating in CPO first-gen deployments. "We just can’t make enough of them [CPO lasers] to be involved in their current first-generation [CPO] deployments because there’s just not enough capacity. We have to prioritize our ability to make lasers for our own transceivers first" So first-gen CPO laser deployments, might even be narrowed down further for Western players like $SIVE, $LITE, $AVGO, and $COHR. And independent CPO CW laser capacity became more valuable if $AAOI had to turn away more customers... Also remember Trendforce was talking about $AMD singing CW LTAs? $COHR / $LITE have capacity signed with $NVDA ... I thought it would be $AAOI, but they might be out of the equation. $MTSI also doesn't look meaningful with early CPO participation (eg. no mention in ER aside from NPO, and removal from Ayar website). So I wonder who players like $AMD is going to go with for Helios (eg. Sivers + Ayar more likely candidate now)? Btw, this is not bearish AAOI because they have too much demand for optical transceiver business. Just more bullish on the existing few qualified CPO laser names that have capacity. 2. Demand imbalance and bottleneck for InP lasers / optical transceivers. AOI's CEO stated kinda supported that when they said: "The customer demand is 20%-40% higher" than expanded built out capacity. "We are getting this kind of demand from several big customers almost every week. Lasers are the biggest bottleneck right now for the transceiver business" 3. China being years away from having CPO DWDM specification lasers. I covered this earlier when looking at CPO competition from channel checks. But AAOI confirming that China is "easily at least two, three years or even longer from having CPO lasers is incredible tread through on defensibility Western laser positioning in the CPO laser chokepoint. TLDR: - High demand imbalance for CW lasers and optical transceivers. - $AAOI not in first-gen CPO due to capacity constraints (not exactly bearish AAOI because they have too much demand for their optical transciver business, but even better news for the few independent players with capacity coming online like $SIVE) - China years behind in CPO lasers.

$MTSI earnings transcript: "Customers are coming to us with urgency due to the general supply shortage of indium phosphide DFB lasers" Emphasis on "Urgency", CW "DFB lasers", "coming to us". CW DFB names, such as like $SIVE and $LITE should be happy to hear about this laser bottleneck getting validated.

$LITE CEO said even as their 5 InP laser fabs come online, shipments would be 30%+ below customer demand. (and worse than the current memory shortage) $AAOI said something similiar with a 20-40% figure. My guess is that InP substrates and lasers both will be one of the most severe bottlenecks in 2027. Which is why I place a lot of value on any independent capacity that comes online whether it's $SIVE with Win or $AAOI.

Just some TLDR notes on $AAOI earnings: - Expects full qualification of 1.6T products by their hyperscaler customer within next couple of weeks (helpful revenue ramp #2, timelines) - Continues to believe that AOI will have the largest AI DC transceiver production capacity in the US (reiterating ambitions during a time when their competitors might get banned) - Expects facilities toward InP capacity to come online in early 2027 (timeline FYI in terms of further ramp) - Total capacity is approaching 200,000/u per month, EOY 650,000/u per month of 800g/1.6t. EOY 2027, 930,000/u (this is the ramp i want to see) - "increase our manufacturing capacity for our external light source or ELSFP. That's for co-packaged optics or CPO". we anticipate ramping production later this year and into 2027, ultimately culminating in about 400,000 pieces per month in 2028 (need some time to model this into revenue) - "As we have mentioned before, we've been manufacturing lasers internally for many years. This has allowed us to avoid some of the shortages that have affected others in the industry" (vertical integration bull case during CW/EML laser shortages) - We believe that in the future, CPO will continue to drive increased demand for high-power lasers (thesis validation on CPO sector) - "to our long-term objective of returning non-GAAP gross margins to around 40%" - "We ended the second quarter with $508.8 million in total cash equivalents" I need to double check if the ATM finished or not - "our ability to deliver revenue in general, and specifically when it comes to 800G products, is limited by our production capacity right now" "If we could produce more, we could ship more right now" Demand > Supply validation. - "Most of the increased capacity will be in U.S. Even so, let me say that, like I keep emphasizing, that is not good enough for the customer demand. The customer demand is 20%-40% higher." Unholy photonics demand validation across the whole sector, read through for $LITE, $SIVE / $JBL, and others is amazing. - "Not in the next two, three years, especially the demand is so big. Okay? Even combined AI, $LITE, $COHR, $AVGO all together, it's still very tough to meet the customer demand in the next few years" More optical sector demand validation. - CPO Timelines: "If you're talking about really high volume manufacturer [for CPO market], I would say more like the late Q3 next year" and "We have been working very close with at least five customer" If you care about current earnings (which I'm not really looking at closely) Revenue: $191M vs. $190m EPS: $.06 vs. $.02 TLDR: Extraordinary demand across the laser + optical sector read through. Kinda supporting Lumentum CEO statement that laser shortage is worse than memory shortages. 2027 capacity ramp on track. To map inflection period with timelines, would be around early next year, as stated in their previous earnings call. AAOI has the customers now. Limitation is making enough lasers and transceivers.

$AAOI is an end of H1 2027 volume ramp player for me, since around then is when they hit inflection point of $471m/month revenue projections. Recent drafted ban on new optical transceivers coming from Innolight and others, increase weight on players like AAOI, $SIVE / $JBL, $LITE, $COHR for their 1.6T+ programs as well. Especially if finalized in 2026. Since there's likely going to be price hikes, and more demand concentration over capacity from the select few Western players.

A very material catalyst came about for Western supply chains from $AAOI, $SIVE / Jabil, to $LITE and Coherent: The Trump administration is drafting a ban of new Chinese optical transceivers and DC devices. Which would likely hit China’s Innolight, Eoptolink, and other Chinese optical interconnect supply chains. "The agency would ban all imports of new transceiver models ​and then exempt many ⁠non-Chinese suppliers from the restrictions" We'll likely see a larger bifurcation of supply chains with even greater importance put on Western players.

$LITE CEO Michael Hurlston at the RAISE Summit warned that the supply gap for InP lasers for AI DCs: Is facing a more severe supply chain crisis than memory. And with Lumentum's 5 InP fabs, shipments would be more than 30%+ below customer demand. This is especially visible with EMLs today but is already expanding to CW, especially as CPO ramps. I've always been a fan of the laser chokepoint + bottleneck from $AAOI, $SIVE, $LITE, and $COHR. And glad this thesis is starting to see validation.

Few earnings TLDRs with my favorite $AXTI and $AMZN: Amazon: - Raised 2026 capex to $220B vs. prior $200B (partly due to higher memory costs, which is bullish on $MU to Samsung) - Even at $220B, Amazon will not have enough capacity to meet all 2026 demand; Jassy expects the same in 2027. - Most incoming 2027 capacity is already reserved, with substantial 2028 capacity also reserved. Mostly read through on upstream semis. $GOOGL, $META, $AMZN, and $MSFT all identified compute shortage. All the narratives a few weeks earlier was "excess compute" from Meta and others + hyperscalers cutting back on spend... All BS. Amazon earnings was very bullish on AI semi trade. AXTI: - AXT to double InP capacity during 2026. Then double again in 2027. This is expected to make AXT "by far the largest indium phosphide producer in the world." - LFG - Q2 rev was $47.6M, the highest quarterly revenue in AXT history (InP revenue reached a record $30.7M, from DC applications.) - Revenue increased 77% sequentially and 164% year over year. - InP revenue-capacity targets: $60M per quarter exiting 2026. - $130M per quarter exiting 2027 That $130m target could be hiked too since management stated they find "whatever ways to increase that capacity expansion" - Management said the reported backlog remains well above $100M, but that number no longer reflects all available demand. "Customer demand continues to outpace supply, no matter how fast we add capacity." 800G/1.6T is driving the current cycle, while NPO/CPO extends it beyond 2027. Also they're targeting 50%-plus gross margin: "We should definitely be targeting a number that begins with a five." China demand more than doubled, and their agreements with Casela, $COHR and $LITE did not materially drive Q2. This is not even considering my projected massive ASP hikes yet as InP substrates get more bottlenecked. TLDR: - Amazon too much compute demands, needs capex to fufill it, so upstream semis go brrr. - AXT world largest InP substrate supplier, high gross margins, expansion, and supply can't keep up with demand. Bullish on demand side from Amazon + capex. Bullish on upstream optical supply chains from too much demand.

$AXTI secured LTA with $COHR earlier, with a $22.3M reservation payment. As well as a LTA with $LITE today, totaling $87M ($43.5M + $43.5M) again to reserve capacity. Considering that these are both of the two leading optical players, seems positive. The actual details such as pricing of the contracts aren't known, so we'll find out more.

$AXTI enters long term agreement with $LITE for InP substrates. Lumentum has agreed to pay a deposit of $43.5M as a reservation for capacity. https://t.co/5Dl3L9EYRa

Global indiscriminate AI deleveraging right now, $AAOI is one of the high-beta names affected. I'd personally be surprised to say the least if they do $5.6B annualized revenue in 2027 (off of $471m/month projections), and remain a $6.3B company. $LITE annualized right now is ~$3.23B and they're a $48B company (but higher margins)

I kinda expected it for critical minerals since Western needs as much subsidies as possible to compete with China. US Gov taking a stake in $GFS for CPO was not on my calendar. But it does go to show CPO becoming a compute supply chain priority and they made Globalfoundries a domestic champion. Which my thoughts are that it's positive for all the Western players this US CPO supply chains like $LITE / $SIVE. Not so much for other parts of the world.

US Gov to take 1% stake in $GFS, and award them $300m for the US CHIPS ACT. This is actually a strong read through on $SIVE / $LITE, given this CHIPS ACT is specifically aimed at advancing CPO + Silicon Photonics. (For reference, Sivers and Lumentum were the only two public laser suppliers named in GFS presentation slides. Sivers laser arrays was named recently as a reference design in Globalfoundries SCALE for CPO). Per US Gov announcement: "GlobalFoundries will receive up to $300 million to accelerate domestic CPO R&D by two to three years" (NIST) Never thought we'd see the US Gov / $INTC foundry playbook for CPO in specific...

I personally see it as extreme short term deleveraging that overshot many individual names. - $BE to $TER reported blowout results, with Bloom reporting 166% Y/Y rev growth + expanding margins + raised 2026 guidance... Teradyne reported 104% Y/Y revenue growth with 300%+ EPS growth. Your leading optical players over in China reported amazing preliminary earnings + extremely strong read through for the Western photonics sector. Think earnings season tend to remind markets about continued AI acceleration. I'm expecting $LITE, $SNDK / SK Hynix, and sector leader ERs to continue that trend. But it does feel like markets are rewarding existing acceleration more rather than future growth a year out over near-term revisions as seen with $AMKR. But as a TLDR, looks very positive for the themes I'm tracking. - Then you have $GOOGL capex raised to $195-$205B, which is typically the biggest AI demand signal from hyperscalers. - 77% 0bps change est. next FOMC decision from prediction markets. Trump administration on Monday called for the Fed to lower interest rates. So your 3x rate hikes fears this year seem kinda overblown. - Chinese fears from DUV to $CXMT overflooding are extremely overblown as well. We see this with every sector from time to time until people remember that lasers or HBM bottlenecks for a reason. As for personal thoughts, it was unhealthy seeing everything rise up or down together, especially with these themes. But I'm personally not worried since I have full conviction in my names, especially optical interconnects like $SIVE or $AAOI. $META compute and $GOOGL GCP margins/growth shows increasing demand for $NBIS and similar neocloud business models. $META + other hyperscaler notes around LTAs with $SNDK and Samsung/SK Hynix, $MU point to structural memory demand. Can go on and on... But when you have Jim Cramer telling every margined DC trader to "sell everything" at market open and news saying there's an AI bubble. I do hate it when others say "it's dropping so sell". My belief is that the important thing to look is accelerating revenue/EPS growth. And if that thesis stays in-tact with revenue acceleration in line with hyperscaler capex. TLDR: I see signs of AI demand / revenue acceleration, hyperscaler capex is one of the most important things to track. And my guess is that we'll see the theme recover broadly. But I can't predict what hour, day, or week that happens.

@Thomus0x eh, Rosenblatt June 30 note identified AMD as the likely first $AAOI CPO customer. I wouldn't quite say they aren't remotely close. $LITE / $COHR / $SIVE just look like your top 3 right now in terms of CPO laser visibility per the recent Morgan Stanley note.

Not exactly for $AAOI (they're working on CPO too, just a little further behind in commercialization). There's a podcast that featured the $SIVE CEO recently called: "Market Insights: Photonics & AI". Most interesting take was: "Pluggables will be around for the next 10 years". There's a lot of CPO + RNG/MRC optimization TAM cannablization arguments for pluggables recently, but looks like it's here to stay. And that there's going to be multiple architecture paths going forward (CEO also NPO alongside CPO as an major opportunity in the next 5 years). As for challenges: Vickram stated manufacturing capacity + availability of raw material is the main bottleneck. Likely referencing the existing bottlenecks with upstream CW laser ramp. From the podcast, seems like a large focus was on pluggable markets due to larger near-term TAM (which is understandable with $JBL + other players), with CPO being the north star. So it might be interesting if $SIVE M&A ambitions were to acquire more pluggable optical transceiver IP, like what $LITE did with Cloud Light. But TLDR: Lot of different paths moving forward, pluggable here to stay, CPO seems like North Star for where industry is heading. Feels like there's room for every qualified laser supplier given the industry demand is growing faster than what they can all collectively make.

$INTC and $AMD to sign CPU LTAs with Chinese customers for AI DCs (Reuters). - Prices of some CPU products have risen more than 40% in China since the start of the year from sources. - Month-on-month increases topping 10% for some products CPUs were already a bottleneck, following CPU ratios due to AI inference... But the broader trend of LTAs seems to be appearing from: - Memory, with $MU, Samsung, $SNDK, and SK Hynix signing DRAM/NAND LTAs. - Photonics, with $LITE, $COHR signing EML LTAs. And recent Trendforce reports that $AMD and hyperscalers are now pursuing CW LTAs. And I'm sure there's many more from MLCCs to all the way to substrates. +1 for the bottleneck investors... hard to be a "bubble that pops" if you have take or pay demand spanning multiple years.

$GOOGL reported earnings today: EPS: $9.11 actual vs $2.91 expected - retail reactions to EPS blowout is kinda just accounting noise, since $SPCX, Anthropic, and others were likely large contributors. Revenue: $119.7B actual vs. $116.98B expected Google Cloud Revenue: $24.77B +82% Y/Y, vs. 63-65% expected ($22.2-$22.6B) - this is a very large beat and most material part so far. Cloud Operating Income: ~$8.81B, implying 35.6% margin vs. 32.9% Q1. Capex: $44.92B vs ~$44.15B (basically in line). So initial read through is Google Cloud accelerating growth with expanding margins is genuinely bullish for AI demand. Their former $180-$190B capex guidance is already extremely large, and as long as we get around these numbers in the earnings call + forward projections... Should be good to go for $LITE and the other optics/networking trade. (eg. last earnings, they said DC and networking would be ~40% of capex spend). Hyperscaler earnings transcripts are probably the most important thing to pay attention to with the AI capex trade. And that should be in 3 minutes.

Wow, a historic single day recovery. $SIVEF +30.89% $IQEF +28.6% $AEHR +26.53% $CIFR +17.82% $NBIS +17.3% $AAOI +15.6% $LPK +14.48% $AXTI +14.12% $MU +12.54% $SNDK +12.8% $SOI +11.1% $TSEM +10.39% $LITE +9.25% $INTC +8.22% $AMD +8.11% $MRVL +7.27%

Memory names from Kioxia finished up a whopping +17.18%. Samsung up +6.15%. Optical networking from $SIVE, $LITE, and $AAOI are showing signs of recovery, all up 4%+. Neoclouds from $NBIS to $IREN all up 4%+ premarket. $INTC to $AMD to $MRVL all up 4%+. Does the Cramer effect work on the entire AI trade?

If $AAOI are projecting $1.4B a quarter q3 2027 ($471m/month), which is $5.6B revenue annualized, (targeting 40%+ gaap gross margins). And they’re a $8B MC… Or if personal $SIVE CW Win capacity projections are around ~$400m midpoint array revenue off 60% gross margins. And that’s a $1B MC. Just applying a low 20 fwd p/e might rerate optical names considerably. Even with other names like $LITE, they’re completely sold out for the next 2 years, and having that sort of demand visibility… Is not a bubble. Europeans tend to use TTM to value companies while optical names are 2027-2028 growth stories.

Thanks, love reading the comments! Goldman Sachs raised Innolight PT to 2581 RMB. Roughly 163.6% upside from current valuations. But the largest thing is its 2026–2028 earnings est revision raised by a whopping 65%/108%/119%, based on: - Much higher silicon photonics module volumes - scale out, scale up, scale across volumes - 1.6T/3.2T lifting blended ASP + margins - increase in AI capex This is typically very material read through on the optical sector since: I tend to think of Innolight as a $TSM (semi capex) type read on how the photonics landscape is doing. Eg. Higher silicon photonics penetration means more TAM for cw lasers like $SIVE (cw) / SOI wafer demand for $SOI. ASP hikes for future gen is positive for the other optical markers too. Think my other takeaway outside the report was Innolight stating 800g demand was growing more significantly than expected from their transcript on the 12th. Which in turn signals more demand for names like $AAOI to $LITE next earnings. TLDR: GS gives high earnings projections during a time of massive corrections. Fundamentally, broader photonics ecosystem should be happy when it’s ER time.

My guess is we’re close to market bottom on semis from $INTC to $LITE. A good indicator is if everyone on $RDDT blew up their portfolios to $0. https://t.co/X1m9Yv1JuX

Morgan Stanley listed $SIVE as the three core CPO laser players alongside $LITE and $COHR in their note 3 days ago. Fidelity Research, JP Morgan and others have started to take active positions. They recently raised an oversubscribed institutional round at 57 SEK. This is all ahead of US NASDAQ listing. I personally see short term liquidity disconnects relative to forward revenue around now and I'm sure institutions are capitalizing on it.

I think people tend to forget that $LITE went from a $3B valuation to $60B+ in 2 years time from owning the EML chokepoint. This was before the 9x TAM expansion to ~$154B per GS by H2 2028. $SIVE has the opportunity to dominate the next CW chokepoint with 1.6T and CPO. And it's sitting at ~$1.1B now.

I don't see any fundamentally wrong. There's probably going to be large corrections from time to time flush out margin/leverage before things move higher. And this month seems like that time of year? $POET confirmed your big optical giants like $LITE, $COHR are completely sold out for the next 2 years, and likely into 2029 for photonics. Innolight confirmed 800g transceiver upward revisions 3 days ago, so that should be positive for $AAOI and the others. Samsung became the most profitable company in the world, and continues to project DRAM hikes for future quarters. $MU signed 16+ LTAs showing memory demand is structural... $META + hyperscaler capex plans are on the higher end of projections. I wouldn't conflate short term price movements with longer term trends. And as seen with $AEHR, recoveries tend to be extremely fast (eg. 1M of corrections wiped out overnight).

Feels like algos often miss $SIVE, after slight $LITE / optical sector recovery after CPI print. Especially bc it's trading on some random Swedish exchange, but catches up on random days. That being said it's definitely on institutional radar, especially since MS put it next to $LITE and $COHR as the three leading CPO laser companies yesterday. Just waiting for things to play out, stocks don't move in a straight line up every day.

TLDR of Innolight investor relations takeaways: 1. "Overall, 1.6T market demand has not contracted; instead, 800G demand has increased significantly compared with previous expectations" Prob most important takeaway as a whole was 800G demand revision (also longer tail demand). Which is a bullish read through on US transceiver makers like $AAOI, $COHR, $LITE. Lot of new customers like neoclouds, AI model companies, contributing to overall demand rather than just hyperscalers, diversification always a bonus. 2. Innolight said the shortage covers the module supply chain broadly including: - Optical chips. - Electrical chips. - PCBs. - Other module materials From last ER, I think they singled out EMLs and CW optical chips as the most constrained. So Innolight's bottleneck list mention broadened since then. They expect some of the component availability to improve gradually from the second half of 2026 through the first half of 2027. Think a lot of this is already known from earlier though. But just some confirmation + easing timelines (EML is extremely bottlenecked, same with CW, this is probably talking about other components). 3. Innolight said module-production equipment is not the constraint. Equipment lead times remain relatively short. So this isn't really a bottleneck compared to others. 4. The overall proportion of silicon photonics continues to trend upward. Last year it was mainly 800G. This year, some 800G customers are further increasing their silicon-photonics proportion. 1.6T also added some new customers Positive for SiPH penetration eg. $SIVE / $JBL, since this shifts away from EML toward CW. Basically: main surprising takeaway is just 800g demand go brrr. Apart from that just reaffirming bottlenecks/timelines/market speculation.

$AAOI mainly gets revenue from pluggable, they’re developing/sampling related lasers but have no CPO design wins. Others like $MTSI look like they fell off the map for some reason with cpo lasers. CEO says “TBD” with commercial timing and it’s in reliability work right now. And fits the OSINT research done with Ayar removing Macom from their website. So would agree with MS that $SIVE, $LITE, $COHR imo are the three leaders to focus on for lasers.

Morgan Stanley note on CPO today. Key participants include: - $SIVE, $COHR, and $LITE in laser supply - Broadcom and Nvidia in switch platforms - Lightmatter, Ayar Labs, Marvell/Celestial, and POET in optical engines and photonics, - $TSM, $GFS, and $TSEM in silicon photonics foundry capacity I’ve covered all of these before, like Tower Semi. But I’m especially happy that Morgan Stanley validated my research that $SIVE is one of the critical global players in CPO. A small $1.5B laser company next to your two leading $60B+ companies… If you also synthesize Rosenblatt Securities recent note that China laser suppliers were quite far from having CPO lasers. This kinda magnifies importance of the three Western leaders of that laser chokepoint.

Rosenblatt on recent optical sector weakness from $AAOI to $LITE: "Stocks in the Optical sector have traded poorly for the last 1-2 months" due to CPO delay reports and China capacity scares. "We think short sellers... do not actually strongly believe in the thesis." Multiple short sellers told them they will likely close their positions... late July and early August. Further, they say they plan to buy Optical stocks in 2027 for the scale up CPO opportunity. Hilarious report on laser weakness, read is very positive for $SIVEF, $COHR, and others moving forward. I've been long on CPO sector, but seems like institutions want entry points, just a bit later on.

Yep, it’s interesting to witness retail capitulation. After we got Bloomberg Meta compute article cleared up by their internal memo. And the 2 reports on delays were denied by Nvidia. Both of which caused the selloff in the first place... So Photonics / Nvidia’s roadmap hasn’t fundamentally changed: $LITE is still completely sold out for the next 2 years and likely into 2029. $SIVE is about to volume ramp with GlobalFoundries, Jabil, Poet, Ayar, and other hyperscaler suppliers. $TSM COUPE and their TW suppliers from Shunsin to Foci aren’t randomly disappearing into the void. $AAOI and their $471m/month h2 2027 revenue projections haven’t changed. $IQE and their epiwafer contracts with Macom and Tower Semi haven’t disappeared. $AXTI ownership of 40% of the InP substrate supply chains haven’t suddenly disappeared. As with any theme from Rocketlab + Space sector 50% drop back in 2025. Or Nebius + Neocloud 50% drop entering 2026. Or the Samsung/SK Hynix crash from Iran War LNG/Helium/Oil fears few months ago. Volatility from indiscriminate thematic selloffs isn’t typically representative of individual company fundamentals. Retail tends to build conviction over price movements and imaginary charts, then lose that when a stock drops. And institutions are probably placing limit orders to capitalize on that. Conviction shouldn’t be tied to the quote of a stock on a certain day, but long term revenue or operating income growth.

$SIVE US NASDAQ listing is more for: - Fundraising (most important thing) to acquire IP + TAM expansion and make each laser they sell more valuable. Following what $LITE did (eg. Cloud Light acquisition) from just selling lasers. - Also it helps bridge valuation gaps, since I see it as undervalued relative to laser peers that are all in the tens of billions. Rather than near term revenue/partnerships.

@Goodly2016 I just the algo gods just missed $SIVE after $LITE and the laser names pulled a recovery.

Hesai Technology, a Chinese lidar maker faces US national scrutiny over its expanded partnership with $NVDA and lidar sensors. For $OUST, $AEVA, and Western lidar bros, this is generally positive if competitors get regulated out. Since there were warnings that: Sensors could be disabled or exploited remotely, given Hesai firmware update disabled lidar units on February 29 (as evidence). By second order effect, this is also bullish for upstream laser suppliers too like $LITE and $SIVE that are used in western lidar players.

$SIVE is probably my favorite stocks right now, not concerned about short term drops. - You have the laser supplier to $GFS, $JBL, Ayar, $POET, and many other hyperscaler suppliers. - NASDAQ listing planned in the next few quarters - Followed by M&A goals for TAM expansion. And it's literally trading less than $POET for some reason. All while CW lasers are extremely bottlenecked to the point $LITE can't make enough. Then they got a considerable amount of oversubscribed funding for fabless laser ramp recently. Comfortable long for me, probably one of the stocks that way overshot selloff imo.

Just putting it out there: If everything crashes together from $NBIS, $MRVL, $INTC, $SNDK, $AMD, $SIVE, $MU, $LITE, and others... Which are all down -4% to -10%+ today so far. Probably doesn't have anything to do with individual fundamentals. Indiscriminate selloffs from things like cascading margin liquidations, usually provide compelling opportunities if the underlying improves.

Was a sad few months for $RDDT. But glad it's finally back above $200. Reddit was doing: - $663M revenue w/ 91.5% gross margins - $204M GAAP net income - 45%+ fwd Y/Y growth after 69%+ growth. - Net profit is ~30.7% of revenue Felt very weird to see a profitable company get dragged down after earnings. But in hindsight, given the increase hyperscaler capex, the drop felt more like it's more relative opportunity cost more than fundamentals? Since a lot of inflow poured into $MU / Sk Hynix that are bottlenecked into 2029. Or with laser bottlenecks like $LITE that last into 2029 as well. Same thing happens in reverse after selloffs ig, even if fundamentals didn't change. Been seeing a lot of noise with memory optimization or Chinese players... but don't quite think you sign 16T+ LTAs if memory was getting flooded or not used anytime soon. Same with optical players... if in earnings, they state anything they make gets bought, I don't quite think a lot of the noise has material effect on their fundamentals. Regardless, nice to see some recovery with familiar faces like $HOOD, $HIMS, and $RDDT though.

I personally think $SIVE can be the next $LITE. In the past few months alone, we've seen: 1. Partnerships with O-Net pushing ELS into mass production 2. $JBL 1.6T LRO mass production signals with "relatively dramatic moats" for pluggables using Sivers. 3. $GFS SCALE reference level laser for hyperscalers with pluggable, NPO, CPO. -> -> where $AMD and others went to GFS for CPO. 4. Ayar, which joined $NVDA NVLink for CPO -> -> which removed Lumentum/Macom from their website and likely made Sivers their primary laser supplier. -> -> AlChip likely Trainium win from Amazon price placement (Ayar's customer) -> -> GUC rack level design in with Ayar. -> -> Raised $500m for mass production by AMD, Alchip, Mediatek, and NVIDIA 5. ~ $AEVA starting HVM H2 2026. 6. $POET starting HVM H2 2026 with hyperscaler suppliers like Lumilens ("top 3 hyperscaler initial customer") 7. TFLN + $SIVE CW Lasers with Lightium 8. Likely direct relationships with $MRVL Celestial and CPO players like Lightelligence/Lightmatter. 9. Multiple new undisclosed relationships for pluggables following Jabil in their quarterly transcripts With new Trendforce reports that $AMD and other hyperscalers are trying to source LTAs for CW laser sources, serving as a direct catalyst for independent CW sources. So when hyperscaler suppliers from Jabil to O-Net are incentivized to mass produce as many as they can: That's very material for revenue for Sivers relative to current valuations, and it looks like just a waiting game. Even in the past week: - $SIVE raised an oversubscribed institutional round for volume ramp... This is very nuanced since Sivers is fab-lite so it's not going to in-house foundry capex to scale. Likely toward Win Semi and others (they mentioned other partners too), for laser scaling + foundry allocations. So this is likely signaling material for revenue ramp is coming. - Sivers also mentioned NASDAQ listing completion targeted in the next few quarters (probably H2 2026 or Q1 2027 is my est. timeframe). This would fund M&A efforts, since it's impossible with the fundraising environments in local Swedish markets. As for becoming the next $LITE: M&A makes their lasers more valuable, so downstream IP acqusition -> into contract manufacturing like $FN, and others to make the full 1.6T pluggable or optical engines. Is how they get there, since laser array ASP scaling that people are modeling off of, wouldn't command a $60B+ valuations. There's going to be a lot of bridge architectures like NPO/pluggables, etc and noise around certain architectural delays in the meantime. But markets misunderstand laser companies like $LITE, $SIVE, $AAOI and others are used across different architectures compared to if you just look at certain passive optical components. So markets see "CPO delay headlines" algos sell off laser companies that benefit from other architectures. Being included in the pluggable 1.6T ramp to CPO scale out (Which Sivers is included in), helps bridge revenue waiting gaps until scale up inflection point H2 2027. I'm personally holding long term, since I haven't seen a ~$1.4B company mapping to this many hyperscalers before. TLDR: - Waiting on volume ramps from different architectures to play out across their hyperscaler supplier mapping -> 1.6T LRO/CPO scale out late H2 2026 start into high volume ramp 2027 -> H2 2027 CPO scale up volume ramp - Waiting on NASDAQ listing likely H2 2026/Q1 2027 for M&A efforts to fully take off, unless Sivers get more creative with equity financing in the meantime.

Yep, $AMZN looks like the clear winner in physical AI shift. I think the Amazon ecosystem... is probably going to the catalyst for robotics players compared to others in the Google/Meta ecosystems. I kinda see parallels to the $GOOGL TPU effect on suppliers like $LITE or Mediatek, but for robotics... like Agility. Still early though.

UDN Money report "殺翻光通訊後 SemiAnalysis 惹議 業界揭其劣跡 許多公司慘遭魔手": - SemiAnalysis, released a report in June, questioning the timing of the launch of the CPO on the grounds of low yield and delay, which caused the photonics sector to collapse. - The agency then partnered with Tema to launch a photonics ETF. - The shares held in the ETF under the trading code LAZR happened to be the photonics stocks that were mentioned negatively in the report $HIMX and $LITE, which were specifically targeted negatively in their article "Powered Down, Lights Off", have been bought in Semianalysis and Tema's new ETF after the optical sector crash.

@256_rc -> Writes bearish report, specifically calling out $HIMX and $LITE -> Proceeds to add $HIMX and $LITE their actively managed ETF after they drop -25-40%. op strategy.

Always a fun time seeing semi markets crash from Bloomberg report framing once again… UBS analyst on $META report: “this is not new news”. Regardless: $AEHR down -18.3% $AAOI down -17.13% $SIVEF down -15.4% $SNDK down -14.8% $TER down -13.8% $GLW down -11.4% $MRVL down -11.2% $LITE down -10.2% $NBIS down -7.8% Getting PTSD from Bloombert’s previous misleading report on AMD/Nvidia global export controls earlier this year that crashed semi stocks. FYI: Meta doesn’t randomly buy $48B+ worth of neocoud contracts if they overbuilt capacity and can cut capex… Markets are stupid sometimes.

Photonics is backed by actual revenue numbers and it's an architectural shift championed by $NVDA. Quantum barely has any revenue. $LITE is completely sold out for the next 2 years (per $POET AGM) likely starting into 2029. Lumentum is so strained that they buy CW lasers off competitors (earnings transcript) $COHR is bottlenecked, so they buy EML off Lumentum. Then, $AAOI is coming in with Made-in-America independent CW capacity, are projecting $1.4B/quarterly revenue ending H1 2027 of a stupid $9.3B MC today. So all the CW capacity from independent players who have it now like $AAOI or $SIVE are likely to become scarce resources. Many other hyperscalers have already started LTA discussions (per Trendforce). And players like $AMD are currently talking with players such as $AAOI (Rosenblatt channel checks). Thematically, next 2 years is 9x TAM to US$154B per GS reports, especially with 16x/45x dollar content increase in scale out/scale up. Then there's the overall thematic AI drop from $META, which is widely misunderstood because people conflate what "excess capacity" means. And as UBS mentioned, Meta planning a cloud offering is NOT NEW NEWS. Bloomberg just has a tendency to publish information that causes doom drops across the semi sector like Nvidia export controls a few months back. But I'm familiar with what I'm holding so I'm confident in these numbers playing out. Especially when all the major players are sold out, the fundamentals catch up eventually.

Just some notes on $POET AGM and read through on optical markets: - "The top three laser suppliers control 68% of the market, and they’re completely sold out for the next two years" $LITE CEO said into 2028, so POET implicitly confirms laser shortage is going into 2029 now. - NRE with a new customer, building on POET’s interposer for high-power external light source. This is high confidence $SIVE as laser supplier given the Sept 29, 2025 PR on ELS, and new customer qualification would be material for revenue if it goes into volume ramp. - Poet expects Lumilens commercial agreement to scale to over $500 million over the next 5 years. Lumilens claimed a top-3 hyperscaler was their initial customer (Linkedin OSINT) - $830M cash on hand on balance sheet (this is more for Poet fundamentals). - "The entire optical components industry today is facing a severe shortage of critical components." Reaffirming what we know already regarding optical bottlenecks. - "Production ramp in the second half of 2026 this year." Just production timelines H2. In terms of $POET volumes: - existing capacity around 1 million optical engines per year - projected demand exiting 2027 around 1 million optical engines per month - roughly 10x capacity expansion I don't own Poet, but if management delivers on these projections it directionally looks very positive. However something to note is that unlike other suppliers that have named hyperscaler customers to to back up capacity revenues like $AAOI: $POET seems more questionable. But this does look like a very positive outlook for $POET if they match projections.

Honestly this decade from 2020-2030 might be the most goated in human history. - Scaling massive reusable rockets for orbital compute with $RKLB to $SPCX. - on the cusp of ASI and recursive learning with Anthropic and OpenAI - Backflipping Boston Dynamics and Unitree humanoids to replace the human workforce - Star Wars laser beams from $EOS.ASX to AI DC lasers like $LITE. - Waymo and $TSLA self driving cars everywhere in urban cities - and we get industry Quantum commercialization end of decade This is kinda crazy to be an investor in this timeframe. Feels like every movie from the Star Wars Death Star to Skynet is coming to life. What’s next?

$SPCX / Elon Musk acquires Mesh, an optical networking startup. Which is working on 1.6T OSFP (pluggable). It’s seems they own the optical engine/packaging side of things, but likely sources CW DFB lasers off merchant companies. $SIVE is one of the more startup friendly plausible merchant suppliers as seen with Ayar to $POET? Maybe $LITE and $MTSI that were have a little history too, but less so. Regardless it’s very positive a lot of startups recently like Celestial have been acquired by Marvell. For both merchant laser supplier revenue (working with startups -> having hyperscalers like SpaceX drive revenue after being designed in already). As well as valuations from M&A desirability. Goes to show how optical interconnects is the right direction if Elon Musk is directly buying these companies.

OFC I'm aware. But I'm personally sleeping comfortably since I have conviction in my hyperscaler mapping research with $SIVE. And yes, I still have my million+ share position. Not sure if people realize this: but I'm only here to share my thoughts/ideas. I don't control market volatility, what decisions you all make, or how markets react to new information synthesis. It's much safer for analysts to just reactively tag along Morgan Stanley/JP Morgan/Goldman Sachs research whenever it's created and just summarize. Rather than coming up with new ideas from OSINT mapping and waiting them get validated. Because when you discover a new angle: Everyone keeps heatedly debating topics of 4-6 inch InP fabs, employee count, who their hyperscaler customers are, volume ramp timelines, etc to try and play devils advocate with a thesis. Then actively monitoring every single 5-20% price movement. I'm forced to stay on this topic more since it's less validated + there's always heated discussions. Just like $EWY in Feb, which I did memory projections on + Helium/LNG/Oil analysis. But months later everyone sees memory looks structural with Micron's 16+ LTAs and LNG isn't taking down SK Hynix margins. Or $NBIS from last year in terms of sum-of-parts / dilution structures vs $IREN. And now it's close to ATHs and listed on $QQQ. I'm personally just waiting Sivers to volume ramp in 2027 + listing on NASDAQ to support their M&A efforts. So they can walk down the same path as $LITE when they scaled from $3B to $60B+.

FYI, I posted ideas about $AXTI at $15, $AAOI at $30, $TSEM at $115, $LITE $300, $MU $300, $SNDK $400, $EWY $110, $SIVE $4. $IQE $13, $SOI $44 and so on. So when they finally have a massive correction due to macro drop the ideas are wrong? And most are still up a few hundred percent. TW CPO names are just really early and I’m down a lot on those but I expect them to recover in due time.

@Zenctwill $MU earnings are probably a good read through on SK Hynix/Samsung, which is majority of KOSPI weighting (passively too). So seems more likely than not for SK index. It’s also a positive read through on AI demand, which is why $LITE, $AAOI, and others jumped a tiny bit AH.

Curious if anyone's portfolio is green after today's fun day. $KORU: -32.06% $SOXL: -22.98% $IQE: -13.58% $DRAM: -12.6% $AXTI: -12.57% $FLNC: -12.5% $AAOI: -11.2% $SIVE: -11.7% $TSEM: -10.24% $SNDK: -12.5% $MU: -11.8% Sk Hynix: -12.35% Samsung: -9.6% $MRVL: -8.3% $LITE: -7.6% $SOI -7.15% $TSM: -6.1% $AMD: -6.04% Feels like anything high-beta or semis had a steep drop.

@SaiseiInvesting No, 0 clue why people invest in those types of ETFs. - You have the most basic names you can buy yourself like $LITE / $COHR as heaviest weights, where they take management fees. - Names not adjacent to AI DCs.

IMO photonics theme + CW laser chokepoint is goated. It's legit like markets have short term memory loss and forgot how $LITE went from $3B -> $65B+ from 2024 to now. Because $NVDA caused EML bottlenecks, and forced architectural changes. We're literally seeing the same thing today with CW lasers + 1.6T/CPO shifts with Nvidia signing LTAs everywhere. Now, $AMD + other CSPs are hunting for remaining scraps with large LTAs for CW lasers + optical components. GS Research's ~9-10x $154B optical TAM in 2028 and near $0 -> $91B CPO TAM in just 2 1/2 years. Don't just magically disappear from a month of trading volatility. $AAOI sitting at ~$13B, $SIVE sitting at ~$3B, and other CW laser players look strategically very valuable. And next year I think we'll look back and say "Why didn't I learn my lesson the first time with EML from Nvidia and pick up CW laser adjacent names!" Then there's likely gonna be some new mini trend 1-2 years from now like microled or quantum dot and we're gonna see the same thing repeat. Think Sumitomo's projections with CW laser share + silicon photonics being majority / dominant architecture should be correct. I'm personally just focusing on that bottleneck as you've seen with $SOI, $TSEM, $SIVE, and others.

@jeongpark0509 No price target, but I like to keep in mind: $LITE went from 2.88B MC in 2024, to $67B MC in 2026. Just took 2 years and $SIVE is around the same starting point as Lumentum today.

We're in a massive EML bottleneck right now and CW lasers are getting bottlenecked now too. To my knowledge, $COHR is buying EMLs off $LITE because they can't make enough. $LITE is majority allocated to EML, so they can't make enough CW lasers. So they're buying CW lasers off competitors from their ER transcript, (probably Sumitomo, Furukawa and others), which likely feeds into $NVDA contracts. Then $AMD and your hyperscalers need capacity too but we're already in a shortage. Any capacity that comes online would likely be bought, since looks like we're in a shortage for next few years (lumentum already sold out into 2028). Not quite the same as your sk hynix/samsung/micron memory dynamic but there's still a massive moat with EML with probably only single digit amounts of players able to do this.

Korea is far behind with lasers. Maybe like 1 1/2 years if I had to guess. Which is why OE Solutions is the very first/only to produce 100G EML in Korea AFAIK. US ($LITE, $COHR) / Japan (Sumitomo, etc). dominates EML lasers. China has now kinda caught up. US/Sweden/Japan dominates CW DFB IP. But people are rightly saying a few in the world can do this, and the 100G EML IP/process is valuable.

I've been getting a lot of questions about OE Solutions (138080) recently. Here's my research/thoughts so far on it: They're a small Korean optical transceiver company, similar to $AAOI. And they've become one the few EML players in the world (eg. $COHR, $LITE, Mitsubishi, Source, Sumitomo), with scarce 100G EML laser capacity for 800G/1.6T. OE appears to be trying to make the full transceiver, not just the EML. They also have finished ELSFP CPO products, with UHP CW lasers, which is sampling Q3. Likewise, OE also seems to be building out the full ELSFP, rather than selling CW laser dies, so that's more market share. So you can think of it as Korean AAOI but EML instead of CW, and less capacity/qualifications. And playing catch-up to the rest of the world. However in terms of timelines: 1. 23dBm cooled ELSFP samples start in Q3 2026 2. Sales base for 800G, and 2027 1.6T "full force" 3. Late H2 2027, H1 2028 onward probably their ELSFP enters the volume production. And it seems they're working on 200G EML capability from their investor snipper 2025 OE IR snippet referenced “100GBaud EML / 200G PAM". This seems promising given their IP/demos. ELS has just been unveiled recently, sampling starts Q3. 800G/1.6T Optical transceivers are also likely 2027. So this is basically Korea's sovereign photonics player, playing catchup to $LITE, $AAOI, and the bigger players. (Disclosure: I have positions in OE Solutions (138080). This is fundamental research for informational purposes, not financial advice). As for OE solution valuations: 1. Doesn't seem like there's confirmed customers yet for these growth verticals. 2. Probably not many people understood what they're building toward yet. 3. Yields data kinda uncertain 1. Customers: We're actually in a major EML/CW laser shortage, so any independent capacity will be sought after. I personally don't think they'll have a hard time finding customers here. I would assume anything they make might get bought out and would get extra support from Korea. 2. Institutional support: Probably not much since it doesn't meet threshold for many US institution given MC size + KR listing. I also don't think many people understood what they're building yet. 3. Yields/Capacity: OE's disclosed wafer/module utilization is low (i remember was around 31% underutilized off the top of my head), so there's enough material revenue they can generate before they need to spend on capex. I'm also not sure about EML/CW and other yields. Probably need to go ask the company. Is this some random crap co? No. It's been doing optical transceivers stuff for more than 20Y, has R&D in the U.S. and Netherlands. But their entire AI growth vertical seems to happen next year, and hinges mainly around capacity/yields. And I personally think the EML/CW tech is probably worth a lot more than their current MC, if it were an acquisition target. Especially from a larger player that wanted to vertically integrate EML for pluggables and CW lasers for CPO. Markets are probably waiting on more certainty around qualifications after Q3 sampling or earnings projections announcements. TLDR on thoughts: Some of my friends discussed this last year, was probably way too early. Saw it got many comments 2 months ago, still too early. I still think now is early, but later in Q3-Q4 might be more interesting. I personally think it's a lot higher risk than a major CPO player like $SIVE, that's embedded in Ayar, $JBL, $GFS, and many other hyperscaler suppliers. Which also has Win Semi and others de-risking volume ramp. As OE Solutions looks like a new player trying to build out an $AAOI for the optical transceivers but sovereign EML and CW laser production for CPO products. And there's a lot of answered questions around customers + volume ramp, which presents material risk. But if you believe Korea can build out an 800G/1.6T transceiver EML supply chain and ELSFP with CW lasers. With OE Solutions, it might be worth taking a look into. Still researching the company tho, just initial thoughts.

I think u must be new here. Many of my ideas get intense backlash at the start, especially the more original they are. $AXTI - endless hate to the point I got banned from the $RDDT WSB forum. They thought it was some scam Chinese company, but Reuters, Epiwafer company earnings, and institutions validated their InP substrate position many months later. $RPI - everyone called it some meme stock. Literally Bloomberg, Financial Times, and others went out and called it a meme stock with no fundamentals. Analysts went and said the idea was stupid and said it was going to crash “as a fact”. Earnings came out? Blew away any projection with 58% fwd revenue growth. But they seem to have forgot all the backlash they threw out at me, while they’re citing it as a high growth ai hardware company no. $SIVE? Everyone called it a “meme stock”. I get bunch of hate from Swedish media all the way up. Bunch of people didn’t understand the technical nuances, and they keep throwing personal attacks for some strange reason. But as you know it’s probably my most successful idea and it’s validated so far by institutional buying from Fidelity Research, JP Morgan as well as formally announced partnerships from $JBL to $GFS. Same hate with: - $AAOI at $30, when everyone called management a “scam” or “shady” - $LITE at $300 when everyone called photonics a “bubble” - $RKLB at $20 when everyone thought it was a low revenue launch company that was a bubble. I actually got temp banned from WSB from posting about Rocketlab since moderators didn’t like the stock. - $HOOD at $20 when everyone recalled them freezing GME buys/sells - $IQE at $12 when people thought it was just some random crap $100m company over in the UK with “no actual photonics partnerships” - $SOI at $44 when European bank analysts thought it was “overvalued”and my thesis wasn’t anything new - $NBIS at $75 when everyone in the $IREN camp said I was spreading Russian propaganda and that they had no moat - $INTC at $115 when everyone thought they couldn’t compete with $TSM - $MRVL at $85 when everyone thought they were losing ASIC share to Broadcom. - $AEHR at $35 when everyone misread their earnings and thought they had no revenue - $EWY at $115 when everyone was crying KOSPI was a bubble and LNG/helium/oil would disrupt the memory trade Can go on and on… I do read a lot of the comments, which is why I remember a lot of the hate (probably either jealously, impression farming, or lacking the technical depth is my guess). But I think at this point, people can just see each thesis validated over and over again. And the success in markets drown out the old noise. Good thing is markets are the final arbiter of what’s right or wrong, not the angry comments or posts on X.

Yes, choosing the right theme is extremely important. Even if $POET doesn't really do anything, it still gets brought up thematically due to $LITE, $COHR, and others. Even if $RDDT outperforms extremely hard, it still gets brought down from $META, $MSFT, $CRM, and other software basket names.

I think something to highlight also is not all my ideas are green, especially on short term timeframes! My core three themes are Neoclouds (Energy), Memory, and Photonics. And I'm glad I chose the literal top performers for each segment from $NBIS to $EWY leaps to $SIVE. However, I still have pretty large losses following the false analyst report on CPO delays that $NVDA refuted: That nuked 3 of my TW CPO longs from Foci, Msscorp, Xintec and others. (which are heavily red). Shunsin / Win Semi are holding up much better though. Some of the other ones in Japan that I've mentioned like Towa, Harmonic Drive, NCI, etc. are performing much better following short-term volatility. As for Korea yes I have PTSD for from Auros and now Foosung that are both both red (I didn't own 093370 though, just got PTSD watching price action). Idk if I'll touch Korea again, just way too volatile. But I still think those will end up green eventually following Sk hynix/samsung qualifications + HVM, and the future japanese supply chain shutdown. I also did change some of my previous long ideas like $XLU following the Iran War nuking all chances of rate cuts from 3-4 down to 0, and that didn't play out too well. Three software names I mentioned previously like $TTD, $META ended up red. $SNAP, I also changed my thesis after noticing the endless SBC accounting methods. $RDDT idea was finally in the green from $130 -> $170 after a long time. But I think the vast majority of my ideas like $MRVL, $NBIS, $ARM, $INTC, $MU, $LITE, SK Hynix, Samsung, for larger cap. Down to $AXTI, $LITE, $AAOI, $RPI, $IQE, and others for smaller cap positions directionally play out pretty well. With random stuff like $SIMO, $HPS.A, $TSEM, $AEHR, $LPK, $SOI, $ALRIB, and so on all ended up turning out aight too. The blended average is kinda overwhelmingly green since majority of my long ideas are triple digit YTD. But I've definitely missed a few. Also entry point is really important too... I mentioned $AAOI at $30 or $AXTI at ~$13, but not everyone has the same entry point. So if someone bought AOI at $220 and it dropped to $160, I'd feel bad. But regardless, I'd prefer to judge how ideas play out on medium term timeframes over a few months rather than a few weeks.

I’m not sure why many folks are super bearish on my high conviction $AAOI long… Ever since $30, then on the way up to $170. (Yes I do think every bear is wrong, we’ll see who’s right). They have scarce laser capacity that $AMD and other hyperscalers are looking for. While the entire industry is bottlenecked by $NVDA. Along with a US transceiver supply chain for mass production of 800g/1.6T (management - largest in America). While demand far exceeds supply and while assembly gets outsourced to Asia. Then they’re quoting $471M monthly revenue in H1 entering H2 of 2027. Which is $5.6B ARR, off a $13.5B MC… While a lot of major inflection volume hits even later in 2028. As for fluctuations, there might be active $600M ATMs that get tapped into at random times. And random bear posts + macro from time to time that cause more volatility (eg. Analyst notes saying bear on $LITE due to false CPO delay rumors, then that brings down others in the sector). Also we’re a year out so timelines are still a little early. I haven’t seen such fast revenue ramp since $NBIS.

Just some random thoughts, I do think AI is the most disruptive technology in human history. To the level of agricultural or industrial revolution. Since Anthropic, OpenAi, XAI, and others are racing to build superintelligence. The amount of economic impact can't be measured if AI helps find cures for cancer or accelerates discovery for Quantum Computing. Or if AI end up displacing the workforce, which increases profitability for companies. The US Gov has every incentive to keep the buildout going too, as the implications from Warfare, Cybersecurity, is also immeasurable if China takes the lead. So there's likely to be incentives and subsidies to win, even if there's not enough profit derived LLM training/inference. As for sustainability, when you look upstream, $GOOGL is able to fund it majorly with their own cashflow, same with $AMZN, $MSFT. More lukewarm on $META. Very iffy about $ORCL. But I do see some bubbles forming around debt interest like $CRWV. Maybe circular valuations that's happening with OpenAI backlog agreements or $NVDA / $AMD agreements with Neoclouds to buy their GPUs. But as seen with $MSFT and having OpenAI be a major part of the backlog, it did correct off the information, so "bubbles" like that do pop despite the overall markets increasing. Definitely don't see a bubble in upstream semiconductors from $LITE to Sk Hynix though since the amount of profit they get from the buildout would likely be insane to make up for capex decreasing. OpenAI was actually my biggest fear from contagion, eg. $CRWV, $CBRS and others, but they just raised a lot. So think it will be fine for another 1 1/2 years of capex, especially if they IPO this year. I also don't think we'll get massive Fed tightening despite "predictions" since this will trigger a contagion since many of these players rely heavily on debt. And although the Fed is independent, don't think Trump would have supported someone who is against his administration goals. As for semiconductor valuations going up every day like $AMD or $MU, there's probably going to be some corrections here and there. Everything going up together is kinda unhealthy. Can't time the capex peak but just from $AVGO and other projections, it just keeps accelerating exponentially into 2028. Especially as everyone is starting to sign multi year agreements as well. OpenAI contagion / hyperscaler capex decreasing / fed tightening was what I'm looking out for, and no blaring signs of any of those yet. So I think the music will keep playing for this year at the bare minimum.

@aletir99 When has US investors ever cared about what people in Sweden think? I still think $SIVE has the potential to be the next $75B $LITE if they follow the same M&A route after NASDAQ Listing.

Fun throwback to random ideas back in 2025. Back then, $AAOI was $2B MC, $LITE was a $26B MC, $AXTI was $500M Now: - AAOI is $15.37B - Lumentum is $74.47B - AXT is $7.24B Was working off less information back then, given it was an early theme. Obviously nuances with ASIC programs might have been missed as more details came out. But directionally, glad thematically my ideas turned out correct. Feels like dejavu seeing current $3B MC optical longs like $SIVE.

Other way around, $NVDA bottlenecked the entire industry for EML capacity. And did the same with CW capacity ONCE AGAIN with $LITE, $COHR, and $MRVL (if they have LTA in place with Celestial) I said this a few months ago, we'd see this exact same playbook. But $AMD, $AMZN, $META, and others are just so stupidly slow that they let themselves get bottlenecked. Now there's only a few merchant players like $AAOI, $MTSI, and $SIVE that they all need to fight over.

Ayar started off multi-sourcing with $MTSI and $LITE. Then removed them from their website and likely made $SIVE primary source (likely for first gen). It's every hyperscaler supplier intention to multi-source, there's nothing material being added there. Ayar is one of the bigger CPO players, but if CPO mapping is correct more revenue should come from $MRVL Celestial, maybe Lightmatter/Lightelligence. Ayar is also just one customer of many... This is not even including $JBL + other pluggable players that use $SIVE. Or even O-Net producing ELS with $SIVE for Asian supply chains. Nobody can accurately estimate revenues right now, it's just that they've been qualified into so many different hyperscaler supply chains like what I've done previously with $AAOI or $AEHR. That when volume ramp happens... And it's a hyperscaler supplier, you expect revenue numbers to be extremely material.

$SIVE is the next SIVE. Don’t think you’ll find another company. That’s qualified and likely primary/sole source with: - $JBL and other pluggable hyperscaler suppliers - Ayar and the $NVDA NVLink CPO ecosystems While being the foundational reference laser for $GFS and pluggable/CPO/NPO deployments. That hyperscalers like $AMD and others use, at current valuations. Even $POET buys $SIVE lasers and Poet is about the same valuation just off having one $50m purchase agreement. Amount of hyperscaler suppliers for 2027 into 2028 is just ridiculous. From the general meeting today in a few hours, we’ll hopefully see NASDAQ listing timelines confirmed. So they can have room for M&A to TAM expansion and to make each laser they sell more valuable. Following what $LITE did to grow into a $75B company.

@hisarchive lol I’m super bullish on my $SIVE position too. > EU macro positive > $LITE + laser group up 4-6% overnight trading from InP bottleneck easing > possible Nasdaq listing timeline announcement today We’ll see what happens.

Yep, very stupid to be a bear. When Trump is doing everything to boost markets before Midterms. On top, your $WOLF power semi basket should go brrr from 800 VDC acceleration. $LITE optical basket should go brrr from InP easing. $SPCX successful IPO gives more appetite to risk on themes/IPOs (eg. Space sector). And overall macro go brr from War/Strait peace deals. It’s already kind of showing, since 2026 rate hike odds also crashed from 65% -> 35% following the news. Along with crude futures dropping. I've actually found Europe to be the most price sensitive to Iran tensions, so EU markets would probably be the most bullish overall… (South Korea/TW was originally with Sk Hynix moving directly in correlation to crude oil futures, but stopped caring after awhile). But basically: Murica go brrrr.

Today, there's a new report that China eased InP substrate exports. Which is expected to relieve mass production bottlenecks in the photonics market (source: Digitimes) My optical positions are very happy to hear this: From $AXTI (substrates), $IQE (epiwafers) to $AAOI (lasers) / $LITE / $SIVE, and others. Taiwanese optical players like VPEC, Landmark, and others should go brrr as well. Just to recap: the photonics market, especially for laser companies is moreso "how much can you make" rather than how much demand is there. InP substrates was one of the main bottlenecks affecting upstream capacity. So if you're able to make more = more revenue.

This is gonna upset a lot of people: But TA is astrology for traders. It's confirmation bias + trading human psychology about entries. Kinda like how people frontran $SPCE from $SPCX IPO expecting retail to mess up tickers by trading psychology. $SIVE didn't go up 1900% because of the golden cross space comet firebreathing dragon candle that someone is trying to sell for $499. It's because markets are pricing in future revenue from $JBL, $GFS that got announced. $AXTI didn't go up 8000% because the golden waterfall candle alert sounded back at $8. it's because of InP substrate, game theory on ASP hikes, export controls, photonics demand, and others. If you want to figure out psychologically what other regards are believing, you use TA. But for determining the actual upside... nah People have been drawing $120+ TAs on $IREN for the past idk how many months none of that crap matters when there's a $6B ATM that needs to be bought through first. It's by theme (eg. $LITE to $AAOI relations), any news catalysts that affect forward revenue, projections, macro news, earnings, float dynamics, and so on. Then you can just derive what MC that company should be at. So for entry points, sure you can use TA. For determining where the stock heads, just throw the tyrannosaurs rex omega-green candle indicator out the window.

Just some reflection, my core high conviction ideas from 2025 aged super well! From $ALAB: $97-> $372 $LITE: $330 -> $904 $AAOI: $30 -> $175 And others like $NBIS, $RKLB, and $TSM! This was back when I had close to no followers! I got some nuances slightly off before more information was made public. Lost conviction on ALAB along the way with optical transitions. But this was back when AAOI and others were small $3B companies (~$14B now). So maybe some others in the same range today like $SIVE should get some more attention? But I’m happy a lot of them aged super well. And I think a large part of my recent following growth is just other seeing my ideas like $AXTI get validated over time.

Just in case you’re wondering why indexes + individual names like $SNDK to $MRVL to $LITE are green now. Trump just cancelled attacks on Iran. This market is so volatile… https://t.co/mYzzYeU5rL

Glad optical players from $LITE to $AAOI and $SIVE are slightly recovering as they should. The initial selloff was just stupid. https://t.co/DsOdQAWf9i

$LITE Management Speech from Mizuho Technology at today’s conference. The company expects to start shipping CPO scale up optical products in the second half of 2027. With formal ramp up in 2028. No delays, as this aligns with previous timelines shared. So today, we also got confirmation from $NVDA SVP no delays on CPO scale out timelines H2 2026, and they’re beginning mass production. And $LITE management also stated no delays on CPO scale up timeline. The leading companies in Nvidia and Lumentum probably know their own timelines the better than incorrect analyst reports telling them no. And both are incredibly bullish on TAM and opportunities.

CPO scale out earlier than expected: > Foxconn: est. units register upward and optical switches shipped early to $NVDA CPO scale up timelines from $LITE Mizuho Technology Conference today: “The company expects to start shipping Scale-Up optical products in the second half of 2027, with formal volume ramp-up in 2028” SVP $NVDA networking: “We’re going to ramp up CPO second half of this year”. No delay indications. I’m gonna go ahead and trust industry projections. Where they all reiterate faster timelines for scale out CPO H2 onward. And scale up CPO H2 2027 onward (with main growth happening 2028) Over a questionable motive analyst firm that said $MU had no share of HBM4 Rubin (causing a selloff) Where micron went out shortly later to into enter mass production. (Triple digit return shortly after) I think people going long on temporary bridge architectures from this incorrect report won’t be too happy. Appreciate the buying opportunity though.

I don’t quite think photonics from $AAOI to $LITE or $SIVE are disappearing anytime soon… Just extremely volatile. Anyway, curious what other people are buying today? https://t.co/Io9SVuq583

Names like: - $ASX - Sumitomo Electric - $JBL - $VICR - $GFS - $AAOI - AlChip - $TSEM - $FN - Furukawa Electric - $CLS - $NBIS - $NOK - $AMKR - $LITE - $COHR Off the top of my head. So basically, AI exposure trading in the $10-100B range. Likely have compelling ROI right now compared to indexes or $ARM to $MRVL that ran quite a bit? (Just a disclosure, only have financial interest in NBIS/TSEM/AAOI above) I mention a lot of smaller ideas, but that’s just to chase outsized returns. Still feels like many of these have room to go.

I think my personal style of investing is a bit different, just some reflection: It's inherently discretionary, based on stuff markets don't know yet. And a culmination of life experiences? If you look at $AXTI, $RPI, $SIVE, $IQE and others. Lot of it is guessing on unstructured relationships then seeing if it's right or not down the line. $RPI is the perfect example: 1. Nobody really thought of Raspberry Pis for AI growth. Mainly people bought one or two just for class + education + hobbyist. 2. After OpenClaw, just noticed all my friends and people just buying Apple Mac Minis / RPIs for AI applications. 3. Found validation of that trend online with lot of people sharing video tutorials on AI orchestration with RPI. 4. AI was their ideal perfect growth vector, did some modeling, and thought it was compelling. Earnings comes out and I was right. Everyone in media was calling it a meme stock because there's nothing online that shows revenue growth from AI (was 14% forecasted revenue growth, turned out to be 58%, my projection was around 55%). So it was a mix of guessing next industry trend (AI using lightweight hardware instead of GPU clusters), real life trends, then revenue forecasting off my guess. For stuff like $AXTI: 1. Everyone called it a joke when I bought at ~$12. LLMs would hallucinate and say "hyperscalers/govs would have known about this by now and fixed this vulnerability with InP substrates" 2. Or would conflate very nuanced parts of InP substrate stack, where there's multiple different chokepoints in upstream processing. 3. So part of this was just discretionary based on what I've seen over InP substrate breakdowns, industry trends, etc. 4. Then also guessing the major supercycle was photonics (this was before everyone caught onto $LITE, and others). Or before you saw the $141B TAM projections from GS. 5. AXT owned 40% of InP supply chain, without them the supply chain just gets cripped). 6. All the "analysts" were forecasting steady InP substrate growth, few hundred million TAM, etc. or export controls. 7. Everyone kept trying to say $AXTI was overvalued based on TAM estimates. But if it's a few hundred million TAM you just think that's a joke and go into game theory over allocations. 8. Then I just had to guess, how much would this be worth if it were a NAND style bottleneck, what MC could it reach based on control, how much would hyperscalers price it as, etc. A lot of the current research outputs from Goldman Sachs, or earnings reports from the Epiwafer companies, were confirmed after I published my piece on AXT. If you did research back then, lot of the same material /framing wouldn't have come up. With stuff like $XFAB as you're seeing now, a lot of it is just pure guessing: 1. Not really any CPO materials, how much their MTP process makes in revenue, etc. Everyone online keeps saying they're not a photonics player. 2. But if you go through ASE docs or Gov websites, they all kinda cite XFAB as a major emerging player here. 3. $NVDA also evaluating them right now (maybe it's successful who knows). 4. No clear revenue around this area because their main silicon photonics process is still precommercial, but if you guess it's trying to create a EU supply chain to compete with $TSEM, once pre-commercial shifts to commercial, maybe similar but less volume contracts? 5. Then just seeing updates over the next few months to see if anything confirms this thesis guess. _ I think a lot of information discovery still can be done with LLMs I'm seeing online. But it's also really hard to make a bunch of unstructured inferences based on unrelated material or even just trends you're seeing in real life. So probably better to just do what's standard, eg. do valuation forecasting based on current numbers Stuff like $AAOI, if they're projecting $471m/M h1 2027 and you see MC at $12B, probably undervalued might be a good idea to go long for next years. Stuff like Samsung Electronics is easier, see what people are modeling for operating profits for 2027, 2028 then just seeing if it's undervalued or not at current levels. Maybe something harder is $JBL. I haven't really seen any great volume numbers around 1.6T LRO, but you can just make a guess on how popular that might be then project how that might impact current MCs. Or picking just good names everyone kinda agrees like $TSM, $INTC, $MRVL is also solid. So a lot of things is just building up your life skills then applying that to markets. I don't think it's that can be taught with courses and stuff. Of course, much of what I'm doing is just high conviction inference based on unconnected parts. Could always be wrong.

hmm, i prefer all your upstream chokepoints over $NVDA long term since those will be re-rated the most (nvidia already largest company in the world) pretty sure hyperscaler ASICs would eventually siphon off $NVDA demand like $GOOGL TPU, $AMZN trainium programs. wouldn't be too positive for expontentially compounding revenue growth since hyperscalers were Nvidia's original main revenue stream (even indirect via Neoclouds). But $NVDA's kinda stalling everyone elses buildout by bottlenecking their programs eg. EML/laser capacity agreements years out too. And took stakes in $MRVL / $LITE / $COHR / $INTC etc. making them adopt to $NVDA standards or just owning a large %. So even if they're delaying other programs + their biggest growth vector kinda falls off one day, like how things are shifting already shifting to ASICs for inference. They'll still probably be fine given ownership stakes + will serve companies/countries outside of hyperscaler cash cows (just less revenue)+ made so much before then. But that's probably why p/e keeps going down despite revenues going up, since idk if markets thinks that growth will last forever. Or could be totally wrong and they just keep leapfrogging generation by generation + AI pie keeps growing with Jensen's 4T 2030 capex number.

$AAOI is one of the names I keep averaging up on since $28. Just from random shower thoughts… I feel like it’s just imminent to double or triple if they execute? There’s just too much demand for 800g/1.6T optical transceivers… Then this company is targeting the largest capacity in the US, with extreme vertical integration. I think something to keep in mind is sovereign DCs / T2 AI DCs which increase the demand for 800g as hyperscalers upgrade to 1.6T. So demand for 800g can actually keep increasing… Then there’s the analyst rumors of $AAOI conversations with $AMD / $NVDA. Which is kinda expected given everyone is getting their capacity allocated way into 2028. Nvidia always starts first and causes bottlenecks for everyone else as seen with EML, so not surprising if another hyperscaler learned their lesson this time? Also, everyone seems to be modeling lower ASP at scale. But if this ends up a major bottleneck H1 next year as expected… Could see unexpected price hikes + margin expansion across the board from $AAOI, $LITE, and others not really modeled in.

$SIVE looks like both a chokepoint and a bottleneck for CPO next year. Keep seeing information published from nontechnical people who miss any nuances. Here’s the reason why: 1. CW lasers are bottlenecked signaled by $LITE earnings. Laser fabs are heavily allocated to EML likely from former $NVDA contracts. -> Sumitomo/Furukawa = bottleneck -> Win Semi = bottleneck $SIVE does fab-lite, so are they a bottleneck? Yes, $SIVE sits in the laser bottleneck since control output supply of CW lasers from Win Semi and other fabs from allocation way early on (CEO stated they working with more capacity from other players as well). Perfect example is Kioxia/Sandisk. $SNDK controls NAND output, so they’re a bottleneck because they control final pricing. Demand exceeding supply from Ayar, Jabil, other pluggable vendors + Nvidia NVLink CPO ecosystem… final laser supply owned by $SIVE makes Sivers a bottleneck. $SIVE is also likely primary/sole source for Jabil, Gen-1 Ayar, $MRVL Celestial, and other hyperscaler asic/merchant CPO routes. So no way to get around it (can’t hot-swap single channel cw lasers with Sivers) 2. $SIVE is a chokepoint over CPO. $NVDA use $COHR, $LITE (which likely sources external cw capacity from Japanese competitors) $AVGO is likely vertically integrated as well. However: the entire ecosystem around it from ASIC programs (Marvell, AlChip, etc) and merchant programs (Ayar, Lightmatter, Lightelligence) Are all likely designed around $SIVE. Ayar for example, likely tried to multi-source with $MTSI / $LITE back in 2022 but their lasers probably couldn’t match the level of Sivers specification with arrays (removed Lumentum / Macom from their supply chain site recently) If there’s no alternative at least for the initial generations (obviously they’re working to multi-source). That makes $SIVE a structural chokepoint to go through for lasers. Even if you look at the 1.6T LRO $JBL designed, they achieved a “drastic moat” with performance built around $SIVE likely sole source. $SIVE is also the foundry level reference laser design for $GFS, which your hyperscalers use like $AMD (likely using Sivers + maybe Ayar for gen1): If every major player, who hasn’t achieved vertical integration (Nvidia/Broadcom) is using Sivers for CPO… That makes them a chokepoint. Just look at the entire CPO $NVDA NVLink ecosystem partners: every single one are all likely using Sivers. And they all use $GFS as well (where Sivers is default reference). So $SIVE is both a chokepoint and bottleneck when CPO really scales up H2 2027, over one of the biggest architectural shifts of all time (near $0 -> $81B or $91B TAM in the next 1 1/2 years from GS research note) This is why I say $SIVE looks like it could be the next $75B $LITE over the next couple years. All of this should play out next year. And it’s still trading less than a company with $50M in purchase agreements that buys Sivers lasers to repackage them.

Just some random notes about $AVGO earnings transcript - Revenue target reiterated ($100B+ 2027, pretty sure markets wanted that to be raised this earning, hence the drop) Remember $NVDA Jensen comments about $MRVL $1T company around networking/connectivity/interconnects? - “So as the TPUs continue to accelerate, there’ll be pressure overall on margins. But the connectivity side, the AI networking side of the business has very rich margins” “Demand for … networking is simply insatiable” Also very positive read through as well for the $LITE and the other players. But for TPU margins it goes down at scale, which is understandable. - “they are placing orders in fairly huge demand, which basically gives us a lot more visibility.. runs all the way to 2028 right now” positive read through on overall AI demand since it’s 2026 now… and orders are out in 2028 - The initial order for 1 gigawatt, which includes XPUs and our networking has been received and will start Delivery in the second half of 2027. for our other two customers, we expect shipments to begin late 2026 and accelerate into 2027. $META custom AI program h2 2027 timelines - “Our revenue, our content per gigawatt will increase. you start putting a lot, you start putting embedding CPU cores into the same XPUs and making those chips basically multi die with lots of hvm.” Just for the GW modelers. - “For OpenAI we have delivered silicon and we are on track for production late 2026” OpenAI custom program timeline - “If you ask about 27 or 28 that will continue to grow. We expect in fact 28 to be a substantial growth from what we are forecasting in 27.” More about the demand ramp, go brrr - “Google, that we expect a diversity of sources from them” Mediatek (2454) primary beneficary, maybe $MRVL. Already expected though Google doesn’t sole source so they don’t get bottlenecked. There’s quite a lot of AI demand visibility way until 2028, which is bullish on the AI sector as a whole. Regardless, Broadcom ends the week +0% lol. TLDR: Strongly bullish AI demand, especially networking. Stocks don’t move in a straight line up, but demand curves 2026-> 2027 -> 2028.

@OGCapital25 @Chi_w_wong It's expected Celestial and Lightmatter try and multi source. But maybe for gen-1 my guess is a lot sole source / primary source with $SIVE for the $NVDA CPO NVlink ecosystem. Nvidia has their own program with $LITE and $COHR.

$LITE rode the first optical wave from $3B to $75B in 2 years time with EML and pluggables. My thesis is $SIVE can do the same from $3B, with CPO/Pluggables and CW. Sivers + GFS SiPH reference laser news, alongside the +54% increase today. Is just one step of the way. https://t.co/Hfth69ZnYm

I never thought I’d see the day where $GOOGL needs to raise $80b for AI capex… Then Warren Buffet’s $BRK.A is funding the hyperscaler AI buildout. - $40B ATM, $30B offerings, Berkshire $10B Upstream ecosystem from $LITE to $AVGO to Mediatek to $TSM to $MU should go brrr. Not sure if the Google holders are though, given this massive capex scale isn’t as funded by FCF.

-> IP acquisition -> Just waiting for CPO to take off $SIVE is a laser chokepoint for photonics and are publicly validated by: - $GFS (1 of 2 public laser suppliers with $LITE for CPO per presentation) - $JBL (“Relatively dramatic moat” for pluggables built with Sivers) - CHIPS ACT for the overall company For highest visibility: -> Ayar is the largest CPO player that primary sources $SIVE and are expected to ramp in 2027. -> $POET is another near term CPO volume player that’s heavily visible with Sivers. For OSINT mapping: $MRVL Celestial (direct, not through Poet), Lightmatter, Lightelligence, were all high confidence customers of Sivers. $SIVE is also developing/qualifying with multiple more optical transceiver players following Jabil. It feels like they’re going to end up everywhere. I’m not sure people realize how special that many qualifications is coming from a <$2B MC laser company is… right before 2027 volume ramp. Especially while all the other laser companies trade at $15B-$70B valuations. Just need pluggables to bridge revenue gap into H2 2027 (CPO Scale up) Then making every laser they sell more valuable following the $LITE playbook, to capture more TAM of both markets. - In the overarching optical $141B TAM (10x) in the next 1 1/2 years. (Goldman Sachs) - and CPO TAM going from 0 to $81B in the next 1 1/2 years. So, easily multiply revenue opportunity overnight doing IP acquisition downstream. It’s more of just a waiting game, I think $SIVE is very undervalued relative to forward revenue potential. If it were a private Silicon Valley startup it would probably be worth $4-6B today. Just needs to get listed on NASDAQ for premiums to bridge that gap.

There's a new $SIVE short seller with 0 clue what they're talking about. 1. $MRVL Celestial is likely buying lasers directly with $SIVE as the laser supplier, not through $POET. As they've been identified as a likely direct customer since 2023. An analogy is if O-Net / Enablence / Sivers, and O-Net worked directly with $SIVE (which they have) but vertically integrated away Enablence. They're still likely buying $SIVE lasers. 2. $SIVE is clearly the likely $AAPL supplier for lasers. I use the term likely, because although markets are 99% sure, the BOM is confidential. The short seller is claiming it's TASC, which I've already identified multiple times as an Apple supplier. But falsely they're conflating two different generations of Apple Watches with photodiodes and lasers for glucose monitoring to say $SIVE is not a supplier. 3. US NASDAQ listing is likely incoming soon after the new board meeting and shareholder vote. Upgrading accounting standards and having immaterial changes doesn't mean anything. 4. Ayar labs hasn't scaled up yet. Ayar specifically listed $SIVE as their primary laser supplier in their website. With their executives going out on statement that they couldn't built their products without $SIVE lasers. Claiming $SIVE isn't shipping volume to Ayar when their CPO products haven't ramped is stupid. 5. There's zero leak around news for listing. Hilarious coincidence and management has always been pursuing NASDAQ listing since last year. Short sellers keep repeating this disinformation to try and profit. 6. I've never seen such hilarious BS around Win Semi volume scaling. High confidence in SpaceX and $AVGO supply chain critical foundry. 7. Using arguments from authority saying they know an engineer and then having them confusing architectural differences between $LITE / $COHR and $SIVE is hilarious. Regardless -distorting financial statements -conflating different gen architectures and timeline NRE - reiterating false accusations to profit off short term sentiment is likely going to see them turn into a long as CPO/Jabil partnerships volume ramp.

@TheWizardofYYZ @ethics3606 Nothing. Just sentiment shifts after a good looking guy who runs a hedge fund sold $LITE positions.

No, unfortunately me going long on $LITE last year doesn’t send it to a $70B MC, unlike public opinion. they’re all driven by extreme forward revenhe growth, $AAOI $471m / month starting H2 2027. And $SIVE total forward revenue pipelines growing 77% in a single quarter, from new pluggable partners from $JBL to unannounced ones.

It’s mainly just “follow the leader” algorithmic selloff in current photonics markets. Most laser/optical related companies from $AAOI to $SIVE seem tied to $LITE performance… Despite individual fundamentals improving. Eg. (AOI with $AMD / $NVDA discussions). Algorithms don’t differentiate well, especially if something is higher beta than others. But if you know something markets don’t like Sivers with more optical transceiver customers unannounced. You can outperform in the long run. There’s a lot of 20%-30% intraday moves nowadays, so I personally wouldn’t trade these movements. Just going long on the Kingmakers in photonics thematically since I’m confident in exponential TAM growth.

@WuKongWAGMI There’s only a few major pluggable players that I can think of that don’t vertically integrate lasers like $LITE and $COHR. So Innolight is possible. $SIVE hinted at multiple players since this plural, so there’s likely a few more.

I think $SIVE should just become a full American company, and use NASDAQ listing as the first step. > US cap table / large ownership + US CHIPS act support already > larger valuation premiums + M&A opportunities. > local Swedish media blatant disinformation from underwater short sellers, isn’t helpful for AI photonics growth > lot of more funding opportunities + support from US institutions / funds / indexes By preserving EU efforts under a subsidiary and having a US parent company. This helps Sivers become a major US optical player, not just a Swedish semi trying to explain itself to local markets that doesn’t understand. I do think management sees a path forward for $SIVE to become the next dominant US photonics giant like $LITE.

> markets went from doubting $SIVE customers ($150m MC) Turns out it’s likely companies eg. $JBL, Ayar, $AAPL, Defense Primes, $MRVL celestial. > to doubting their execution ($600m mc) Turns out you skip the capex if you go with Win Semi > to doubting what share they get vs competitors like $LITE ($1.2B mc) Turns out it’s likely sole source for companies like $JBL and primary suppliers for Ayar. > to doubting their revenue opportunities ($2B MC) Turns out they got 77% pipeline growth in just a few months > to doubting their partners like Win Semi’s ability to scale (we are here) Anyone who thinks Win Semi… one of the worlds most important foundries for $AVGO, $LITE, SpaceX supply chains… can’t scale capability by 2028 is a stupid bear. We’re at the point where US retail investors acquired the float off Swedish investors. But I’m expecting US institutions to find a way to shake out US retail like they did with $NBIS or $RKLB before the next supercycle.

Had some more time go through $SIVE earnings transcript, it’s very bullish: - $JBL pluggable partnership led to more optical transceiver requests for $SIVE So maybe Innolight/Eoptolink and other large players are my guess. - More laser capacity on top of Win Semi with more partners being developed. “When the timing is right, we will bring those details to the market.” CEO said it’s not just Win/Glasgow. I’m already confident in Win Semi scaling capacity, given they’re critical in SpaceX / $AVGO supply chains already. But this derisks those capacity ramp even more. Just not publicly disclosed yet. - tremendous executive credibility and experience with U.S. markets, as well as strong M&A experience Flagged M&A in regards to new board members, which we guessed based on their backgrounds. - “Production orders are imminent from our lead SATCOM”… So that’s volume ramp for space - U.S dual listing progressing smoothly No exact timeline, my personal guess was around late Q3 or Q4. Probably after June board meeting, they’ll announce timing since that’s when new board members come in. - “Viewing the ecosystem vendors as competitors is the wrong way to go about it in supercycles where demand far outstrips supply.” Too much demand in photonics - “Over the last five months, there's been a rapid increase in the Photonics pipeline as well” Basically 77% growth pipeline came from photonics (which validated thesis about cpo/pluggable growth vectors for sivers) TLDR: We moved from “can sivers get customers this small and can they compete with $LITE?” To execution eg. “how much can sivers even produce to feed into each supercycle” as they’re volume ramping while demand > supply.” To me that’s very positive if anything they make gets bought. Also there’s likely to be a lot of TAM expansion in the photonics space post-M&A as well as more ongoing hyperscaler supplier qualifications hinted. Again, revenue pipeline surged 77% in just their quarter (5m) largely from photonics… over the entire company’s history. As CPO scales up h2 2027 onwards, I’m expecting the revenue numbers to look like an exponential curve.

@ram_blings Not 1:1 but $LITE gross margins are ~45-48%. Having 60% gross margins for $SIVE is extreme pricing power. And that’s on top of exponentially growing revenue pipelines… at the very beginning of the CPO supercycle.

$SIVE is the most compelling CPO/photonics exposure to me. Addressing the disinformation: I haven’t sold and don’t plan to sell a single share. I do think this ends up the next $80B+ $LITE one day from ~$2.1B. And I personally have plans to acquire more ownership + support their M&A prospects. I believe earnings transcripts will be strongly positive. As in the part few months we’ve discovered: > AlChip/Amazon private placements, which is positive for Ayar -> $SIVE implying Trainium 4 design in > Wiwynn + Ayar CPO scale up > $JBL 1.6T optical transceiver ramp with Sivers incoming faster than markets expected (with relatively dramatic moat + demand as much as they can produce) > O-Net scaling up ELS efforts with $SIVE > $YSS acquisition of $SIVE allspace lead partner, designing Sivers into Space defense primes > New CHIPS ACT funding for $SIVE > $POET H2 volume ramp and their new $50m -> $500m order (with $SIVE as light source) > information discovery around $AAPL using $SIVE lasers for next gen consumer devices > information discovery around links to Lightelligence (went public $10B+ MC) + Lightmatter as likely customers. > Celestial volume ramp with $MRVL indicators. > new customers working on TFLN with $SIVE like Lightium > $AMD going with $GFS for CPO, and GFS listing sivers as one of two laser suppliers > Ayar removing $MTSI / $LITE from their website and signaling $SIVE as primary source/sole source > Ayar raising $500m for volume ramp (intel, Mediatek, Nvidia, amd etc) > pluggable TAM expansion signaled from 2025 annual report > Nasdaq listing expected soon > MSCI small cap index / Nasdaq omx inclusion, making Blackrock, Vanguard and others passive buyers > M&A signaled from 2025 annual report + 2 new board members that have experience in that area > $NOK as likely customer from 2025 annual report. > $LITE getting cw bottlenecked from EML contracts, $SIVE signaling capacity agreements in place with Win, making the a likely bottleneck owner + chokepoint in CPO sector. All of this market research was done before earnings. Any results is just confirmation of supply chain mapping done. I don’t think anyone cares about former quarter revenue since $SIVE is an exceptionally compelling 2027 long, especially H2 onward. Only thing I’m looking at are: > TAM expansion of the overall photonics supercycle (eg. optical engine, ELS, pluggables) either from M&A or developments > volume ramp expectations from existing companies > Nasdaq listing timelines for more liquidity to support their M&A efforts > any new customers signaled for CPO/Pluggables

They’re stupid? $JBL announced demand > supply for their 1.6T LRO and this signals mass production on $SIVE lasers. Ayar raised $500m for volume ramp and dropped $LITE and $MTSI for $SIVE as primary. $AMD went with $GFS and have a high chance cw of using sivers for their CPO program. Sivers also signaled M&A which expands TAM a ton downstream

Back when $AAOI was ~$20-30 when I went long: I thought $AMZN and $MSFT were qualifying specific optical transceivers for their ASIC programs. Turns out it’s more interchangeable/mass producible. Regardless, glad my thesis on $LITE, $AAOI, Innolight, $COHR, $AXTI played out so well. Keep in mind: everyone on X was saying “scam management” with $AAOI back at $20-30… Or “scam company” with $AXTI at $12. FUD was pretty extreme. Feels like dejavu again… going long on the next CPO architectural shift like $SIVE or Foci? And getting the same comments. We’ll see if my CPO longs play out the same way like Shunsin does with Innolight or $SIVE does with $LITE. Either way all of those are now up hundreds to thousands of percent.

Interesting photonics selloff today on no news? $LITE down -4.95% $AAOI down -4.85% $SIVE down -14.8% $SOI down -5.73% $AXTI down -8.13% $IQE down -12.13% I think it’s probably the most compelling theme going forward (even more than power semis). Just tends to be very volatile on the way up. Surprised about $AAOI though given there’s some institutional notes apparently about long term $AMD or $NVDA agreements. (Rosenblatt). Maybe $600m ATM caps some near term upside. $SIVE as well, given EU Chips Act 2 is next week around photonics, and they’re listed on the blueprint. Same with MSCI/NASDAQ omx inflow next week. I’ve been personally adding to positions since I have high conviction in the photonics theme (CPO especially) given TAM expansion overall next 2 years.

$SIVE is the most compelling CPO exposure stock to me. Despite the volatility. You probably won’t find something like this again until the next architectural shift in photonics years later. Out of the core laser suppliers, they’re all tens of billions? $AAOI = $15B Furukawa = $26B $MTSI = $29B Sumitomo = $59B $COHR = $73B $LITE = $74B Then there’s $SIVE as one of the core CPO laser chokepoints at $2.3B MC. Earnings are usually confirmation of all the little volume ramp hints like Jabil fireside transcripts for 1.6T LRO. And most returns are typically made before, not after official confirmation is just a rule of thumb.

$SIVE is highest possible upside, since I see them being the next $LITE (which started at ~$2.6B as well in 2024, but now is $80B). As laser chokepoints are known to downstream TAM expand, then vertically integrate assembly/fabs after. Foci/Shunsin I kinda expect to 3-4x. They're more structural re-rating from FAU/component revenue growth... or just more demand on packaging/test. But hard to see them going up 20x.

Did you listen anon? $SIVE is extremely early. And we’re about to see a ton of institutional inflow (Blackrock, Vanguard, MSCI, NASDAQ) next week for the first time. Then, couple that with NASDAQ listing soon, with even more US institutions entering. This is what it’s like to be in a name like $AXTI or $LITE at the very beginning. And this is still at a point before major institutional capital hit the float or CPO supercycle has ramped.

@ShortsHoward So this is exactly what I mean by using ChatGPT will make you miss the nuances: They're literally different architectures. People using LLMs to compare $LITE single high power laser to one of the channel's outputs in a multi-channel array don't what they're talking about.

Photonics is nuanced and using ChatGPT/Gemini makes you miss all of it: 1. $SIVE is actually a chokepoint and partially a bottleneck. The reason it's a chokepoint is leading CPO/optical hyperscaler players go through Sivers, likely: Ayar. Celestial. Lightmatter. Lightelligence. Poet. If you take out Sivers, you literally can't make some of their products + delay their roadmap by years. As many are sole/primary source but are heading the direction on multi-source. As for the bottleneck argument: Win Semi is the bottleneck for scaling laser production. But... the nuance is when you have capacity allocated for the next few years. You become part of the bottleneck itself if players fight you for allocation of finished lasers. That's the nuance people miss with capacity allocation dynamics. It's like saying $SNDK is not part of the NAND bottleneck when Kioxia makes all of it. But when Sandisk has the ultimate control of output supply, they become the bottleneck + have all the pricing power. Sivers controls output supply of CW lasers given allocations, and as seen with $LITE earnings, CW laser is currently bottlenecked as everyone seems to be stuck producing EMLs. 2. Like how LLMs always uses em-dashes. You can tell when people use AI when they always use the same "CW is a dumb interchangeable laser" argument or compare "power" specs after conflating different architectures. That's why your "analysts" using AI will get this wrong over and over. There's CW lasers... and then there's a specific architectural design that Sivers achieves with DFB lasers. If you compare power specs with $LITE vs. Sivers, Lumentum wins in isolation. But they're completely different laser architectures. All the leading CPO players like Ayar, chose $SIVE for an architectural reason for high power, low thermal, laser arrays. $JBL 1.6T LRO also made one of the most dramatic moats cited by their fireside chat, using Sivers lasers. If you think CW lasers are interchangeable with Sumitomo/Furukawa, and others. And can be plug-and-play... i don't know what to tell you? Again: $SIVE makes architecturally unique CW lasers for leading CPO players. 3. I'm not sure how many times I need to say this: $SIVE for 2024-2025 has been going through development contracts. People using TTM revenue or former P/S metrics are using completely the wrong metrics, when there's volume ramp in 2027. It's the same with $AAOI which volume ramps in H1 2027. $AEHR which volume ramps after qualification. $LPK that volume ramps after qualification. This is just missing qualification cycles in semiconductors and how to model financials currently. As for the $LITE comparisons (which was also my long last year): $LITE literally started off selling laser dies before acquisition of Cloud Lite and other downstream optical engine components. This is where $SIVE is at today with starting off in the laser chokepoint for CPO: People are modeling laser revenue off very isolated TAM projections. Meanwhile Sivers is targeting M&A to expand revenue for TAM projections. This is not a simple component FAU + ramp valuation modeling over with a Taiwanese company. Since Laser companies like $LITE, $COHR are known to downstream expand to make their lasers more valuable, then vertically integrate (fabs, assembly) afterward. Again, Sivers worked with Ayar and these types of companies before they all became billion dollar companies. I have high conviction knowing they know what to acquire down the ELS/optical engine stack + pluggable transceiver for TAM expansion. It's just annoying when I get people who don't understand the nuances backseat commenting wrong things about my longs. I got the same thing about $AXTI is not a bottleneck! InP isn't needed! China! back at $14. Now it's $140 I got the same thing about $AAOI "is going down 50%!" back at $65. or "AOI management is shady at $30". Now it's $170 I got the "there's nothing new with $SOI" back at $45. Now it's $170. I think I'm one of the few who actually understands the nuances with photonics, since I did call out $LITE, $TSEM, Innolight, $AXTI, $AAOI, $SOI, that outperformed both photonics markets and overall markets over the past year. And now I'm long on $SIVE.

I don't post dollar amounts because they don't matter. What matters is return %. Speaking of that... YTD: 3840.39%. I'm probably the only one in the world. Who called out multiple names that 10x'd in a short timeframe. Do you remember these thesis anon? 1. $AXTI 2. $SIVE 3. $AAOI 4. $LITE 5. $IQE 6. $AEHR 7. $CRCL 8. $EWY 9. Unimicron 10. Nitto Boseki 11. $OSS 12. $GDRZF 13. $RPI 14. $SOI 15. $ALRIB 16. $SNDK 17. $SIMO 18. $VPG 19. $TSEM 20. $ARM 21. $MRVL 22. $INTC 23. $LPK 24. $NBIS 25. $MU They're all up 100-1000%+, because... 1. I post a thesis. 2. People can see how the stock performs months later. 3. They turn out right (thesis validation) because they're up hundreds of percent + hold their returns. I really dislike the traditional X influencer who shows large dollar amounts or fancy watches/cars/private jets. Then use that to get more by selling expensive subscriptions rather than through market returns. So trying to set a new trend off pure information discovery/synthesis from free thesis posts and the results that follow in terms of return percentages. TLDR: Market returns in terms of percentages matter the most to validate a thesis. Not the dollar amount made.

People in Sweden always like: “How does $SIVE have so little employees and can do all of this” vs. $LITE? Turns out… You can build the most valuable IP in the world if ~1/4th your entire workforce are PHDs. https://t.co/oVlJJ9OEaZ

I said this before but I have high conviction in $SIVE. I'm confident their UC Berkeley + $LITE executive team knows what IP to acquire. Since they've worked with Ayar and others from the start. Also helps that 22% of their company are PHDs so entire team is cracked. CHIPS ACT, all these likely partnerships from $NOK to $AAPL also gives a ton of credibility to the IP moat they've built. They just lacked the funding before the recent market interest in Sivers. But I'm very interested to see what they can do from here.

For $SIVE to become the next $80B+ $LITE. Sivers is the current laser kingmaker of the optical transition to CPO and 1.6T. They basically supply lasers to the leading players in the CPO space. From likely $MRVL Celestial, Lightmatter, Lightelligence, $POET, and others for CPO. before they got big. And now with large players like $JBL for 1.6T LRO + more test/qualifications underway for pluggables. They've finally solved the Catch22 problem, and have the attention of the market to pull off foundational CPO related IP acquisitions downstream on NASDAQ listing (or now with equity). And expand revenue as much as possible from the laser source into: -> Optical Engine/ELS value. -> Optical Transceiver IP Just like $LITE did to drive their valuations from $2B -> $80B in 2 years. But instead of EML + pluggables, Sivers is doing this for the CPO supercycle, the fastest TAM expansion in history for photonics. I'm following the story for them to pull this off this David vs. Goliath shift catching up to $LITE. More than I care about little MC % returns that's happening currently.

$SIVE is nominating two new board members today. It's very highly telling since the newcomers have acquisition backgrounds from: -> Head of M&A at Ericsson / Advisor at Verdane, focusing on M&A / Deutsche Bank. -> CFO from HMS / Axholmen and Celerant Consulting around M&A/strategy. The bull case with $SIVE was to start from the laser source: Then speedrun TAM expansion down the pluggable/CPO stack through IP acquisitions, and use $FN + others for final assembly to keep things capex light. If they want to capture more overall revenue during the CPO/Photonics supercycle, following the $LITE playbook. So, it's a healthy indicator they're heading down the right track nominating two M&A focused people. Only idea to float out is to capital raise with private placement or convertibles with US institutions after NASDAQ listing. Since Swedish markets are still very thin and Sivers can get better terms for larger acquisitions... after new US liquidity reprices of MC/shares on listing. (Sivers has that recent bridge round in the meantime) Larger US institutions are likely interested in entering new very material $SIVE positions as well once Sivers passes some US institutions listing mandates.

A good looking guy that would mog Clavicular side by side has no impact to any fundamentals. I cut some exposure too in $LITE $COHR like Leopold, last month. But rotated it to a specific optical theme with CPO names like $SIVE / Foci. The entire photonics supply chain is in the start of a massive supercycle and there’s nothing more compelling going long on CPO as an architectural paradigm shift. Markets conflate two companies as the entire theme and sell off anything with it. Great buying opportunity for people who understands the nuance though. I still think there’s upside for Lumentum and $COHR, just less likely to double at current prices as fast if you’re going shares only.

Just your normal Monday correction in the AI space from $NBIS to $LITE to $AAOI? https://t.co/5g3HCAlcA4

I'm not sure why people look at 13F filings so deeply when all the hedge funds are super behind on names like $JBL, $LITE and others. The most returns come from frontrunning institutions before they figure out the next $SNDK. Not following them 3 months after they file.

When I see comments like this (and there are a lot) from retail investors: I immediately think they lack the technical depth. I'll walk through each one from $SIVE to $LPK: 1. Photonics TAM goes from $14B -> $154B In just two years time, and it's likely going to keep scaling past 2030 as it's the next generation architecture of choice. It's not going away in 1 year. It's not going away in 3 years, which is why $LITE premiums keep going higher since they're backlogged into 2028. $SIVE supplies CW lasers and is highly tethered to CPO and now pluggable transcivers for 1.6T and 3.2... For expected companies like $JBL, Ayar, Lightmatter, Lightelligence, $POET, $MRVL Celestial, and $AMD. This isn't a "trade", it's the core chokepoint and IP holder for the next generation of photonics. And it's a comfortable hold for the next few years as they scale to become the next $LITE. The risk I personally see (since they're already qualified with so many players), it's mainly how much TAM they can capture of the overall optical supercycle. (And potential risks with Win Semi volume ramp, but Win is massive so I can sleep tightly there). As just supplying lasers isn't enough to justify valuation. It's TAM expansion downward into making the entire ELS or entire pluggable transceiver that makes these laser companies so valuable. Then afterward, they can vertically integrating upward for gross margin expansion upward like $COHR into doing the laser fabs or even substrate level. And that in my view is a very asymmetric risk/reward ratio as we've already seen this done with $LITE as they went from $2B to $80B. 2. $LPK - Is the purest exposure, without the messy financials of SKC Absolics, as the next advanced packaging shift for glass substrates. Almost every single major semi company from $INTC to Samsung are adopting glass substrates. $LPK is basically $ASML of this chokepoint, since they supply to ~80% of the global players currently. Yes, there's "trade cycles" for equipment suppliers like $ASML, where if there's more foundry capex, ASML scales up. But if there's downturns, these tend to perform poorly, and don't capture all the volume ramp that happens after. However, if the MC is $650m and they're making $100-200M, revenue per costumer volume ramped, the amount they make from the glass substrate cycle will likely exceed current valuations. And they'll have baseline fundamentals (as more companies adopt the packaging shift), that keeps their valuation up. It's just a waiting game for volume ramp at this point. 3. $AAOI - This is literally $INTC but for America + Photonics. It's like saying Intel is not a long term investment. Guess where all your optical transcivers are made? China. Thailand. Malaysia. If you look at Innolight, Eoptolink, $FN, and others. AOI is building the largest Made in America supply chains for both CW laser fab, as well as 800g, 1.6T assembly. Yes, there are pluggable cycle ups and downs to this as well. There's going to be a wave for 1.6T next year, then CPO cannibalizes pluggables down the road. But since they make the entire supply chain in house, they have extreme optionality for other segments. And like $NVDA older gen-GPUs, there's going to be sovereign DC requirements for older gen pluggables from names like $AAOI. It's likely going to keep rising as it hits that $400m+/month revenue target H2 2026. There's just a lot of different short term volatility along the way like the $600m dilution. 4. $IQE - ??? It's one of the most important players in the Western word for epiwafers. $MTSI went out of their way to pay off IQE's debt because they can't have them going under. $IQE is also supplying to $LITE. The world is currently bottlenecked both on the epiwafer level from Landmark comments and InP substrate levels. Their financials were track but the raw book value, and value they hold to the entire Western supply chain... completely justifies their valuation. And other optical companies will not let their core upstream supply chain go under. As these tens of millions worth of materials would screw up tens of billions worth of downstream products. Again photonics is the next generation architecture required to scale AI. It's not Quantum where it's just "In development". It's literally here and the architecture of choice by $NVDA. I would not be surprised if all of these are a lot higher in 3-4 years time. People who think it's one and done in 3 months time "only because I mentioned it" don't know what they're talking about. Institutions would have bought up the name eventually (like Point 72 on $IQE) and retail would only find out after their valuations are 600% higher. Should really do the research before adding comments like these: These are all forward growth companies that require in-depth supply chain knowledge.

Leopold Aschenbrenner is a legend, but I'm not quite sure he can beat 3152.77% YTD in the Serenity Awareness fund. That being said, I've hit 23 different longs this year with 100-1000%+ YTD. 1. $AXTI 2. $AAOI 3. $SIVE 4. $LITE 5. $IQE 6. $AEHR 7. $CRCL 8. $EWY 9. Unimicron 10. Nitto Boseki 11. $OSS 12. $GDRZF 13. $RPI 14. $SOI 15. $ALRIB 16. $SNDK 17. $SIMO 18. $VPG 19. $TSEM 20. $ARM 21. $MRVL 22. $INTC 23. $LPK Do you remember all of these anon?

$SIVE is now aiming to become the next $LITE, a US photonics giant. They're re-centering their board around US executives + US photonics. So the core board are now: US $GFS Executives and $CITI Executives, with the company run by UC Berkeley grads and $LITE executives. The 3 members leaving were local Swedish/EU. This is just a shift in strategy from focusing on developing local Swedish Semi environments: To dominating the US/global photonics market. I'm not trying to discredit their service/background. But in my view to focus around US/global photonics markets, it's likely optimal to have more US executives. But they should all be proud for helping make $SIVE what it is today.

$SIVE 2025 annual report analysis. TLDR: Extremely Bullish. Sivers main growth vector is CPO, but they've TAM expansioned to pluggable transcivers + multiple new qualifications/development. 1. "We are currently seeing great interest... testing our DFB lasers across multiple manufacturers in pluggable transceivers" For pluggable angle, we've seen this with $JBL 1.6T LRO already, but annual report hinted they're developing/qualifying with more hyperscaler suppliers. "Our serviceable markets have now been expanded to include pluggable optical interconnects as well as scale-up and scale-out architectures for co-packaged" (TAM expansion) 2. "Discussions with hyperscalers and pluggable transceiver suppliers indicate a shortage of CW lasers in the coming years" $LITE already signaled CW laser bottlenecks, and they had to buy externally from competitors. So we kinda guessed CW Laser was a bottleneck. And this confirmed it, so was wondering about Win semi. "The partnership announced with high-volume supplier Win Semiconductor in March 2025 now gives us a strong position to meet growing demand" $SIVE likely has capacity locked in with Win from this nuance, which is exactly what I wanted to know. This positions Sivers in the CW laser as both a bottleneck and CPO laser architectural leader. VOLUME PRODUCTION H2 INDICATIONS (BULLISH): 3. "The collaboration positions both companies to address the rapidly growing market for optical AI connectivity, with prototypes to be demonstrated to customers during the first half of 2026 and with the goal of scaling up production by the end of 2026" H1 is more preproduction, H2 production signaled starting with names like $POET. 4. "We are pleased that our largest LIDAR customer will increase production starting in the fourth quarter of 2026" $AEVA start of volume production Q4 with $SIVE = bullish for both. Revenue floor from LIDAR as their CPO scales. 5. Sivers announced a partnership with LIGHTIUM AG to integrate their CW lasers directly onto TFLN wafers. 3.2T+ cycle. (future proofing) FYI no decent investor cares about last year's 2025 financials from development contracts aside from Swedish Media/Locals. Especially when you're forward looking for the 2027-2028 CPO supercycle. But the hint from you can take away from financials + geography that is $NOK is now the high confidence customer of $SIVE. TLDR: -> Win Semi implied capacity lock in during CW laser bottleneck -> Hints of new group of hyperscaler suppliers testing/qualification for pluggable transcivers, which is massive TAM expansion. -> New customers for CW lasers -> Volume production scaling starting H2 for both photonics and lidar.

To make things even spicier. $SIVE is run by UC Berkeley CEOs and $LITE executives. And the ownership cab table is now controlled by American institutions/investors. I’d expect things to speed up on NASDAQ listing as American institutions are heavy fond of executive teams + cap tables like this. US/Silicon Valley is now speedrunning a Swedish in name photonics company.

To answer that question. I’ll just float some historical data out there with laser chokepoints: $LITE went from $3B -> $15B -> $80B in 2 years from 2024. $AAOI went from $770M -> $15B in 1 year from 2025. $SIVE is $1.6B today in 2026. There’s not many in the world and lasers are the absolute center of photonics. Each owned a specific chokepoint from optical architectural shifts. $LITE for EML. $AAOI for cw 800g/1.6T pluggable and now $SIVE for cw CPO.

People wonder why I'm focusing on non-US markets recently. Why? CPO is my #1 thematic long. Markets don't know yet, the sudden paradigm shift in photonics... I was one of the only to frontrun the current supercycle in 2025 w/ $AAOI @ ~$30, $LITE ~$300s, and $AXTI at ~$13 on X.... With the actual receipts and thesis that others can't show. CPO goes from ~$0. To $91 Billion TAM opportunity. In the next 1 1/2 years from GS research. While overall optical market reaches $154B. Many players that had little exposure to the current photonics cycle at all: -> In Europe with high-end lasers design like $SIVE or $SOI with substrates. -> In Taiwan with Foci (3363), Nextronics (8147), Shunsin (6451) and others for optical components and foundries. -> In Japan with laser mass production, substrates, and chemicals. Are suddenly the new dominant players for CPO. As for US players, there's not much exposure. But the existing ones like $LITE, $COHR still get upside from CPO as that's their new growth vector. My contrarian thought process on current players: Is that most of their valuation is priced in huge legacy pluggable revenue that will inevitably face cannibalization over time, so re-rating potential is less unless someone uses leverage. A lot of these new purer play CPO names go from 0 to 100 extremely quickly one mass production starts H2 2026 for scale out (as a revenue bridge) into H2 2027 for scale up (massive growth driver). Markets usually price things in 8-12 months ahead of time too... I have high conviction thematically in my supply chain research despite any market volatility leading up until then.

Random CPO related names I like: - $SIVE - Foci (3363) - $TSEM - Browave (3163) - PCL (4977) - $AXTI - Msscorps (6830) - $IQE - Shunsin (6451) - Furukawa Electric (5801) - $MTSI - Nextronics (8417) - $LITE - $COHR - FitTech (6706) - $GFS - $ASX - LandMark (3081) - $SOI Disclosure: I own most, not all though.

$LITE is now over $1000. Did you listen anon? I do tend to get optical players directionally right... So it's hilarious when I see short sellers on names like $AAOI or $SIVE. https://t.co/agPpMQv8Xw

Nobody can convince me $SNDK isn’t a meme stock at this point. But as I’ve said, bottlenecks with multi-year visibility like $HPS.A or $LITE tend to perform better. https://t.co/WkjoG1jIYu

Every day it's like this on repeat with $SIVE, it's like dejavu lol. Makes sense why Sivers is getting listed on Nasdaq soon instead of staying in local markets. New local hit piece on their own frontier company happens every market open, stock drops 10%: -> "CPO and the CW lasers is nothing new" -> "Sivers is going up against well funded $LITE and $COHR and will lose because of capital" -> "They had to dilute 2.5% to get listed on Nasdaq" -> "Delayed annual report is sketchy" (to get listed on Nasdaq) -> $SIVE is not big enough to capitalize on $JBL relationship and scale. Local Swedish folks end up selling. Western investors/funds end up acquiring the float. Better for the West to own the company before CPO ramp starts. Creating a frontier company purely from Sweden seems hopeless given local culture.

I'm still laughing how much Swedish hate their own frontier companies so much. That they write hit pieces every day on $SIVE. This one was entertaining: Local journalists show up to an empty $SIVE administrative building uninvited. Because they can't fathom the CEO is in Silicon Valley or design team is working on US Gov CHIPS act dev in the US. And because there weren't many cars parked outside + CFO wouldn't take questions about secretive hyperscaler deal financials. They wrote a random negative hit piece. By repeating "There are several who make lasers like these and Sivers are far from alone". Several like $LITE, $COHR, $60B+ companies. and reported earlier that "CPO is nothing special, it's been around for years." While GS projects CPO going from $1B -> $91B TAM over the next two years. Even put "Plans" in quotation marks because they didn't think Sivers is supplying lasers to $JBL 1.6T LRO. IMO, $SIVE ends up as a $10B+ company next year, especially if they follow what $LITE / $COHR did with downstream IP integration to capture more of CPO module BOM. Just don't think Swedish people understand hyperscaler supply chains, concept of forward growth, or the fact that employee count doesn't equate to revenue. Transfer of control from local Swedish -> West is always appreciated, as this was a majority owned local retail company before.

$COHR earnings note: Coherent's CEO basically reaffirmed GS research note about CPO being a massive revenue driver: Transcript: “One of the most important long-term growth opportunities for Coherent” In terms of timeline implications on $SIVE, $LITE, and other CPO adjacent names, just confirms timelines: "Initial scale-out CPO revenue is expected to begin in the second half of calendar 2026, with scale-up CPO revenue following in the second half of calendar 2027" "Coherent is working with multiple other customers and expects CPO solutions to be widely adopted." - This also reaffirmed adoption level. Scale-up CPO is the biggest value driver across the board that happens start of H2 next year. We're still in H1 2026 entering H2 2026. So this is the ideal time to frontrun CPO names before anything hits the balance sheet. This is known as "alpha"... pricing in things market fully don't know yet by looking at financials. Markets are typically forward looking 8-12 months... So if massive volume ramp happens July 2027 (might get pushed forward again)... And it's May 2026, a lot of that gets priced in between July 2026 and July 2027... between volume agreements H2 2026, and pre-production ramp H1 2027. 2 months before markets price in the largest volume drivers is what I call "frontrunning" the next CPO Supercycle. We know it's coming. Just a matter of waiting.

I think many people are surprised to learn that stocks don’t move in a straight line up. Today: Laser companies from $LITE to $SIVE to $AAOI are down -8.0%, 10.2%, and -4.38%. Taiwan limit down -10% on CPO names like MSSCorps, Shunsin, and adjacent like Win Semi. $AXTI and $SOI are down -7% and -10.2%. After $LITE reported earnings. Pretty sure markets missed the heavy nuance that this was extremely bullish for CPO names like $SIVEF or Shunsin from the earnings transcript, but algos sold off everything optical. This is still the very beginning of the entire CPO supercycle curve. Before any volume ramp.

Just for the visual learners about CPO: This is what the CPO market growth looks like from GS + $LITE transcript confirmations. There's certain names that are very high-beta correlated to CPO. Maybe... not the best idea to copy firms named after Orange Peels on $AAOI to $SNDK to short names. At the very beginning or middle of supercycles? Especially if you're retail, live in Europe, and only look at last 12 months revenue instead of forward growth.

I think this is just $LITE corporate wording for: “We don’t have enough InP substrates”. Remember I sad last year that as photonics ramps up, $AXTI will just keep growing as a critical bottleneck? https://t.co/DfeQa3haIK

Yes, $LITE admitting they're forced to buy CW lasers from their competitors is a massive win for $AAOI. Since they have their own CW Laser fab (and target 350% increase in capacity by 2027). The massive nuanced takeaway from $LITE earnings call: $NVDA caused a massive upstream bottleneck for CW lasers. It's likely $COHR and $LITE have multi-year EML agreements, so they're locked up and can't produce enough CW lasers. A lot of the former "Tier 2" players I own like $AAOI and $SIVE, are likely elevated in status now given they're not fully allocated to Nvidia.

Woah... Massive CW laser bottleneck. It's interesting $LITE is bottlenecked by CW lasers so they buy them on the open market: "Now we’ve seen a little bit of tension in our own supply line, externally to get lasers from the external market, CW lasers." $SIVE / Win, Sumitomo, Furukawa, and others operate in a structurally sold out market... Likely because companies like $LITE have to keep producing EMLs. Starting to make more sense why Ayar made $SIVE the only laser supplier on their website and removed $LITE / $MTSI?

$LITE CEO basically confirmed GS TAM expansion + CPO Supercycle. From ~close to nothing -> $91B. From H2 2026 to 2028: “ I think what we’ve said is that we will have a massive supply demand imbalance on CPO” Demand > Supply. “Largest single growth driver, scale-up CPO” Massive revenue driver is CPO. “is very much in its infancy”. We’re at the beginnings. This is exactly why I have positions in $SIVE, MSScorps, Shunsin, $TSEM, $SOI and others for high beta exposure to the start of the CPO supercycle.

True… I did call: $AXTI $12 -> $105 $SOI $43-> $145 $TSEM $110 -> $218 $AAOI $30 -> $180 $IQE $13 -> $46 $LITE $363 -> $1000 $AEHR $30 -> $85 (if you count siph segment) As individual thesis posts… and others like $COHR and Innolight last year… I think $SIVE is the most debated right now, but I do think I’m right. Feels like I’m seeing something others don’t with photonics?

Did you listen anon? It’s still crazy we’re still only at the very beginning of a multi year CPO supercycle with $SIVE. This is what it feels like to be the very first to the names I’ve called out like $AXTI, up 6000%+ over the past year. Still think Sivers is the next $LITE. https://t.co/JdfMd7sNTK

If you're curious about Goldman's Report: They expect "significant EPS upside" among: 1. Optical modules and engines 2. CW lasers and EMLs 3. PCB/CCL manufacturers Here's the massive cheat sheet: Laser / Light Sources (SiPh): Sumitomo, Furukawa (5801), Landmark (3081), YJ Semi, $LITE, $COHR $AVGO, Etern (http://600105.SS), Everbright Photonics (http://688048.SS), Shijia Photons (http://688313.SS), Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI), Accelink (http://002281.SZ), Mitsubishi (6503.T) Laser / Light Sources (EML): Lumentum (LITE), Coherent (COHR), Broadcom (AVGO), YJ Semi (http://688498.SS), Etern (http://600105.SS), Sumitomo Electric (5802.T), Everbright Photonics (http://688048.SS), Shijia Photons (http://688313.SS), Source Photonics (Private), Mitsubishi (6503.T), Accelink (http://002281.SZ), Furukawa (5801.T) Passive Optical Components - Couplers / Splitters: FOCI (3363.TWO), Senko (Private), AFR (http://300620.SZ), Everprox (http://300548.SZ), Lumentum (LITE), Coherent (COHR) Passive Optical Components - Filters: Shijia Photons (http://688313.SS), Sumitomo Electric (5802.T), Lumentum (LITE), Coherent (COHR), Viavi (VIAV), FOCI (3363.TWO) Passive Optical Components - Attenuators: Everprox (http://300548.SZ), Accelink (http://002281.SZ), FOCI (3363.TWO), Lumentum (LITE) Passive Optical Components - WDM: AFR (http://300620.SZ), Everprox (http://300548.SZ), Accelink (http://002281.SZ), Ciena (CIEN), TFC Optical (http://300394.SZ), Lumentum (LITE), FOCI (3363.TWO)

There's a lot of discussion around "CPO supply chains" and what's the most undervalued. Let me put my opinion out there: The laser chokepoint ( $LITE, $SIVE, $COHR ) is by far the best exposure to photonics and CPO. Because there's so much optionality that gave companies like Lumentum the premiums. With: -> downstream IP TAM expansion as seen with pluggable optical transceivers -> vertical integration of InP laser fabs rather than fabless. -> vertical integration of multiple processes eg. testing or even assembly. Treat it like you're running your own company and speedrunning it to $100B or $300B. Not just spreadsheet modeling off projected revenue/margins.

It's pretty insane to see $SIVE become a Tier 1 laser supplier for CPO. This is my prediction/guess with est. mapping: $NVDA ate up all the capacity with $COHR, $LITE after their new $2B+ spending spree. Same playbook with EML early 2025, causing the bottleneck seen today. Now, $AMD / hyperscalers are scambling for upstream laser suppliers. Hence why $SIVE + Win / $GFS became likely primary route to go down. You can see this with: -> $MVL CPO through Celestial (Nvidia signed a deal, but they don't have lasers) -> $AMD CPO -> Ayar -> $POET -> Lightmatter -> and other programs (eg. Jabil 1.6T) As a result, Sivers/Win emerged as the Tier 1 bleeding edge + critical independent laser supplier. And there's hints for this when: 1. $GFS listed $SIVE / $LITE as the two only public laser suppliers in their ecosystem. 2. Ayar removed $LITE / $MTSI off their website and elevated $SIVE to their primary laser supplier. So everyone else ended up going with Sivers since $COHR / $LITE are fully allocated. My guess is that a lot of the secondary suppliers also capture overflow as architectures standardize. But scramble for this chokepoint will be insane early next year given $NVDA bottleneck. And a small $1.2B Swedish company in $SIVE will be in the center of it.

Last year I called out $LITE, $COHR, $AAOI, $AXTI, and Innolight before the supercycle... This year: Found $SOI, which was the SiPH substrate = $AXTI. Then $SIVE, which was the CPO = $LITE. Might have found the CPO equivalent of $AAOI. Curious if anyone can guess?

As for 3x brrrs these levels: 1. $SIVE 2. MSSCORP (6830) 3. Auros (322310) Are my best guesses. Here's my thought process: 1. $SIVE: I genuinely do see them being $10B+ next year, they're the literal bleeding edge for CPO lasers alongside $LITE and $COHR. At a $1.3B MC... For likely mapping: Photonics: $AMD CPO, $MRVL Celestial CPO, $JBL 1.6T, Lightmatter, Ayar, ALChip, GUC, O-Net (ELS), $POET. For Space + Defense: Golden Dome via $YSS, $RTX / $ERIC / Bae Systems. Silicon Photonics: $AAPL (Apple Watches). This is just a stupid amount of customers and it's still increasing. They can always TAM expansion downstream through IP acquisitions or vertically integrate to speedrun $LITE's $60B MC one day once they get more funding. 2. MSSCORP (6830): CPO monopoly over inspection at ~$1.2B. 100% monopoly over CPO yields, $TSM, $AMAT, $NVDA, $LCRX, $INTC, and others are all likely customers. "The company’s goal is to seize a 90 percent share of the CPO inspection market" This basically means 100%, they just don't want antitrust. If they defend their monopoly and CPO ramps, can easily see this worth ~$5B-$9B from $1.2B 3. Auros (322310): Samsung / SK Hynix supplier at ~$210M for Hybrid Bonding Metrology. Basically pure play on two products: -> HBM4 / HBM4e / HBM5 cycles, that $KLA had a monoply over for IR metrology. ---> Getting qualified now likely in Samsung factories, H2 volume ramp est. Sk Hynix likely qualifying too when they upgrade to hybrid bonding. -> Thin-film thickness measurement. ---> Getting qualified now, with "major domestic chipmaker" (either Samsung/Sk hynix), targets mass supply this year. They've been developing for the past decade, only to volume ramp two products from years of qualification H2 this year. Seems extremely likely to 3x to $630M if they switch to volume ramp, feels like an undiscovered gem in the Korean market? Of course, not sure how they play out and this is all speculative but high confidence supply chain mapping. But off the top of my head these three that I own are the most likely ones at this level.

Retail short sellers should really not touch $AXTI. I keep seeing people misunderstand $AXTI as only "InP Substrate" with Sumitomo, over and over but just never made a comment. This is wrong. They are literally 40%+ of the InP supply chain, which is why institutions are funding them. They hold MANY chokepoints, not just InP Substrates. As seen with the Gulf, removing ~20% of a supply is catastrophic, but do that with 3-4 other chokepoints. -> All the raw materials (indium, gallium, germanium). Vital and $AXTI (captive, JinMei) are the duopoly alongside Chinese companies. With Western 5N and others only holding a small fractional share. Since China (Vital, AXT) controls majority. -> pBN Crucible chokepoints: $AXTI is a another massive chokepoint (BoYu). there's a few other players like ShinEtsu/Morgan/etc, but this is another bottleneck in refinery layers. InP substrates: $AXT / Sumitomo are duopoly here, with JX, $COHR holding just a tiny percentage. There's many other processes (eg. Red Phosphorus) here too (eg. Nippon Chemical/Rasa) in the middle. This is a materials problem. $COHR can't just make InP substrates without all the upstream materials + refineries that $AXT controls. If $LITE CEO can't sleep at night because of InP substrates, $5B valuations mean nothing to the Western hyperscaler buildout stay online. Japan is actively getting export controlled on upstream materials, while AXT holds them all captive. So TLDR: It's not just "InP Substrates" that i see a lot of short sellers conflating. It's all the indium, gallium -> refinery processing -> pBN Crucible that goes into the final duopoly InP substrate creation process they share with Sumitomo. if Vital and multiple chokepoints upstream stops shipping, downstream to the Western InP substate makers. AXTI becomes a mini-monopoly. The valuation comes from owning the entire supply chain, not just "InP substrate creation" that even institutional analysts dont understand.

Fun fact: don’t think any large US institution had positions in $SIVE / $SIVEF since it was a majority owned local Swedish retail stock. There’s also fund mandates preventing US funds from entering (eg. Nasdaq listing / $1B MC) That’s definitely changed now thanks to European media shaking out the local holders, Sivers upcoming NASDAQ listing, and hitting $1B+ MC. Again $1.3B is literal spare change for hyperscalers and US institutions. And I have high confidence many would want exposure to CPO, silicon photonics and lasers, since there’s only a few in the entire world like $LITE, $COHR, and $MTSI. Especially… a CHIPS Act laser supplier likely in $AMD, $MRVL, $AAPL, Lightmatter, Ayar, AlChip, GUC, O-Net and other supply chains like the Golden Dome. Part of it is game theory for share accumulation. Since US/Western retail now owns a large part of the float (off of the Swedish sellers). And US institutions now want exposure.

From the reference... it does look like Lightmatter uses $SIVE lasers? Which is brand new information discovery and extremely positive for Sivers. Lightmatter is a massive private leader (~$4.4B valuation back in 2024), with $TSM, $GFS, $TSEM, $AMKR, and $ASX scaling their optical program. And Lightmatter does require a light source... $SIVE also happens to be on the $GFS laser source suppliers alongside $LITE, so starting to put the dots together? End users are likely your hyperscalers like $MSFT, $GOOGL (they invested), $META, etc through Lightmatter-GUC and others. I don't think markets have priced all of this in, since all the supply chain BOM is very confidential + speculative. But when CPO and next-gen photonic architectures scale up, volume ramp revenue will appear out of nowhere on the balance sheet.

Monitoring the situation for you (testing/yields edition): $VIAV and $FORM earnings: Extremely Bullish So what does this mean? Names like $ONTO / $CAMT go brr. Throw in $TOWA (6315), since there's indication of aggressive memory production ramp. Names like Msscorps / $KEYS should go brrr. Broader upstream yields, test, validation, and inspection for both memory + optical ecosystem go heavily BRRR. And it's a leading indicator for $COHR, $FN, $LITE, and others if they're ramping up production. For $VIAV: -> $406.8M vs. $393M (beat) 42.8% Y/Y growth. -> $.27 EPS vs $0.2-$0.24 Guidance was $427m-$437m, indicating acceleration. For $FORM: -> $226M, 32% Y/Y, $.56 EPS vs. $.45 -> margins increased a TON to 49% (which indicates pricing power). -> Guidance was $.61 EPS, midpoint ~$240m revenue. "Record demand for High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) and stronger "Foundry & Logic networking applications" Basically the smaller yields/test ecosystem in general. BRRR.

@Cassian21828964 If anything $SIVE is extremely early at ~$1.1B and I think it should easily be $2B+ today. They’re the bleeding edge of CPO/1.6T lasers mapping to tons of hyperscalers while all your existing laser companies are in the tens of billions. I think it’s the next $LITE.

I mean $SIVE is a stock I don't plan on selling. Photonics TAM is absolutely massive for AI, robotics, consumer hardware (eg. $AAPL), Space... And Sivers happens to be in the bleeding edge for next-gen arhictectures and one of the few publicly traded leaders apart from $LITE and $COHR. TAM expansion is also massive, especially with IP acquisition downstream.

So $SIVE doesn't handle capacity scaling, Win Semi does volume ramp. Win is massive. $AVGO, $LITE, $QCOM, Mediatek, $MTSI, $NXPI, all use them. They're in $AAPL, SpaceX supply chains too. So volume scaling for hyperscalers is derisked if you secure allocation and do it through Win.

I'm happy Japanese communities started positions in $SIVE after doing research! A stronger international shareholder base is always positive. As for some thoughts, my read on the market looks like: 1. $NVDA bought out allocation from $LITE / $COHR 2. $AMD CPO went with $GFS + $SIVE / Win for remaining laser supply maybe $LITE if there’s still allocation. 3. And… $MRVL CPO will need lasers regardless. $SIVE looks like one of the last remaining pure play merchant laser suppliers. So Marvell will go with $SIVE (fits Celestial specs already) directly with multi-source down the road (maybe $MTSI). After they vertically integrate away interposer packaging process IP that feeds into Celestial. Just some interesting things to back that up: -> Ayar removed $MTSI and $LITE from their website and went with $SIVE as primary. Ayar’s connected to AlChip/GUC and others. -> If look at the $GFS slide there's only two public players with $SIVE and $LITE after $AMD went with Globalfoundries for their CPO program. -> $SIVE likely has agreements with Win since last year for laser capacity scaling. $NVDA likely hasn't fully allocated that laser supply, so the remaining companies like $JBL, $AMD, and others go to Sivers for overflow. Since $LITE signaled they were already fully allocated for 2028. I could be wrong, but just based on public information that’s what it looks like. As for why I think it's a good long: -> Sivers also basically had no exposure to 800G or previous generations. -> European markets price in previous 12 months revenue... hence previous depressed valuations -> they get all the hyperscaler overflow created by market panic from $NVDA But they also happen to be in the bleeding edge of CPO and even for gen-2 1.6T ( $JBL LRO) scaling next year in 2027. Then for H2 2027 or 2028, they scale in adjacent areas like Silicon Photonics for likely $AAPL consumer devices. Or FMCW 4D AI companies like $AEVA. Many many years of development, finally coming to fruition next year. I personally think markets are missing something big here, that the public uncovers over time with mapping hyperscaler relationships, website digging, or presentation slides. Hyperscalers suppliers don't randomly choose a $1B Swedish laser company for no reason. The direct contract with $JBL was the biggest signal of that. And it’s my high conviction long moving forward.

@offermemoneyXYZ $LITE is a lobster and the final surf and turf. $AAOI is the steamer who also sells the final surf and turf. But they want to go back to farming red lobsters as well.

Pretend $SIVE, $LITE make specialized blue and red maine lobsters. Very rare, not many people can do. $POET steams the lobsters and prepares it in a ready-to-go container. $MRVL buys those lobster tails, puts it together on a plate with broccoli and steak. Then serves it at the highest price to high end customers. Marvell is famous for serving Blue lobster tails. But can always serve Red ones, and it’s easier to keep serving Blue that they’re used to. And it’s also possible for the Red lobster farmer to shift to Blue lobsters with some effort, but it takes time to raise those lobsters. But… it just so happens Marvell’s competitor Nvidia bought out all the Red Lobsters for their restaurant. In the end, they still need those rare blue Maine lobsters. But just decided to steam it themselves. That’s $POET and $MRVL situation. It’s likely they’ll just go buy lobsters directly since you can’t just spawn Blue lobsters.

I've always maintained $POET can get designed out and likely would in a few years for $MRVL. Especially as hyperscalers tend to vertically integrate upstream, I just didn't expect it so soon. For me to be bullish, $POET would have needed to multi-source to multiple hyperscaler supply chains rather than just Marvell. However, this goes this show: There's a reason why all the Laser companies are worth tens of billions. Laser design and fab is much more difficult than companies like $POET buying the lasers to package them. If $MRVL were completely reliant on $POET, they wouldn't break off the engagement despite the NDA, so it does feel like an excuse. Poet was just the fastest time to market given it's already designed into Celestial, but serves more as a Gen-1 bridge. Regardless all the hyperscalers require a light source (which is much much more difficult to vertically integrate): And after $NVDA went and bought out allocation for $LITE, $COHR... There's not many laser suppliers left aside from $SIVE. There's a lot of nuances markets might miss, but packaging layers are different than laser layers. It's highly likely now $MRVL just buys lasers directly from Sivers (which is even more bullish) given they already match Celestial specifications. And also highly likely Marvell multi-sources with $MTSI and $LITE (if there's any capacity left).

Highly likely now $MRVL just buys the lasers directly from $COHR, $SIVE, or $LITE. It just causes delays to Marvell Celestial roadmap. But I've always had expectations on the packaging side of things to get vertically integrated down the road, just not this soon. Laser IP is much, much more complex. There's a reason why all the laser companies are worth tens of billions.

Still think $SIVE is vastly undiscovered. Feels like markets are only slowly starting to realize the likely laser supplier for $AMD? The only two public laser companies were $SIVE and $LITE on the $GFS presentation by the way…. after AMD’s CPO program went the way with GFS. And $SIVE is the only one left alongside GFS on Ayar’s website after they silently removed $LITE and $MTSI from their partner section. AlChip and GUC also happen to be pretty big for hyperscaler suppliers too.. Feels like Sivers lasers are going to end up everywhere next year.

TLDR of recent news + bottlenecks that go brr: 1. CPU bottleneck - $INTC CEO said AI inference pushed CPU Ratio From 1:8 to 1:1. CPUs go brr ( $AMD, Intel, $ARM) -> $AMAT / $TSM / $KLAC, etc. go brr. 2. PGME / PGMEA shortage. DuPont, Shiny Chemical, Daxin, San Fu, $DOW and others go brr? Photoresist bottleneck go brr? 3. Microcontroller potential bottleneck + price hikes (Arterytek/Arterychip) was weighing price hikes on AI capacity squeezes. MCU companies potentially go brr? 4. President invoked the "Defense Production Act" this week, it included: -Transformers - transmission components - advanced conductors - power electronics - substations - high-voltage circuit breakers - protective relays, capacitor banks - electrical core steel As "severe shortages". Stuff like $AMSC, $PLPC, $POWL, $VICR, $ATKR, $HPS.A go brr. 5. $GOOGL ramps new TPU servers. Google splits AI chips into training and inference TPUs. Taiwan happy. Mediatek and others go brr? 6. Samsung, Kingston lift SSD prices by over 10%. SSD prices keep going brrr? 7. T-glass fiberglass shortages keep getting worse? Nittobo and others keep going brrr? 8. Bromine, essential for etching circuits and flame retardancy, has surged to $12,000 per metric ton. ICL Group in Israel apparently controls 40% of the global supply? Not as familiar with this but questionable brrr? 9. "Epitaxy manufacturer LandMark Optoelectronics reporting output still far below customer needs". Uhh $IQE and others go brr? 10. "AI data centers hit interconnect limits, boosting optical module demand". "the bottleneck is no longer computing power alone, but how that power is connected." Photonics from $AAOI, $LITE, $COHR, Innolight and others keep going brr? next gen from $SIVE, $POET, $MRVL, Win Semi and others go brr? Basically AI semi supply chains go brr because there's widespread shortages everywhere due to AI hyperscaler demand.

Agreed, and glad DNB, one of Europe's leading banks, went out to defend $SIVE valuations alongside me. I still think $SIVE can reach $10B MC in 1 year time as their laser growth scales proportionally to: - $AAPL Watches - $JBL 1.6T Volume - $MRVL CPO Volume - Ayar Volume - $POET Volume Depending on how their qualification plays out into volume ramp. As Sivers supply lasers to all the next generation of 1.6T/CPO players in the space (into ~ $AMD, $NVDA, $AMZN, $MSFT type supply chains). These are EXISTING players at a ~990M MC. Not even including TAM expansion or more partnerships coming up. Especially now with NASDAQ listing, US institutions are forward looking and price in ~12M ahead of time, compared local European valuations that mainly look at previous 12 months. Banks usually provide very conservative targets (eg. 3 years for a 10x), but I do see potential for this company to be the next $LITE very soon. Europe should embrace positive-sum growth of their own companies that supply to hyperscalers. As their frontier companies provide back to locals through taxes, economic growth, and job growth.

It's highly nuanced, and I'll explain why it's not late, but late to some: Photonics is the newest supercycle (maybe H1 into H2 2025 was the start). Then there's many different architectural changes in each supercycle: -> $LITE, $COHR, Innolight, $AXTI and these names led the first I did a thesis post on mentioning all four of them as the largest beneficiaries (all are up 500-1000% 1Y) -> $AAOI, $JBL and others types of names are benefit immensely as the transitional bridge (eg. 1.6T pluggable) -> $SIVE, Celestial, Ayar, $POET are others future gens eg. CPO (what I'm focusing on now) -> VisEra, QD Laser, $ALMU and others are likely going to be future gens (quantum dot, different packaging types, etc) if you fast forward 4 years. Of course, $LITE does everything. $AXTI will be used for everything. But the amount of pure play exposure for each architectural shift in each mini supercycle is different. For example, inp usage with quantum dot is still there, but less used. Or DFB laser arrays for CPO instead of EML. There's probably still 50%+ with $LITE and $COHR. And you're a little on the "late" side of things. But you're extremely early to new architecture generations. What I'm trying to do is point regular retail investors into the direction of new gold mines for free. Before institutions figure out sooner or later by paying $20k for equity research reports.

Photonics go brrr. $MXL +76.2% (lol) $AAOI +15.03% $SIVE +12.69% $AEHR +7.07% $SOI +6.19% $LITE +4.96% Hope you didn’t sell and try and chase other bottlenecks anon? https://t.co/Ft2p94bDWR

I'm amused by Swedish culture at this point. That their retail/journalists are crying every day when someone posts a supply chain mapping of $SIVE lasers to: -> $MRVL CPO -> $AMD CPO -> $JBL 1.6T LRO -> $NVDA -> $AMZN, $META, $GOOGL, $MSFT -> Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba for ELS. Then they go crying even further... When someone shows $AAPL is secret hyperscaler customer of Sivers lasers for their next-gen Apple Watch development (which requires 50,000,000 units annually). Does supplying to hyperscalers... Hurt locals's feelings that much to the point they try and self-destruct? It's hilarious that a "Swedish professional" went out and said CPO is nothing new and nothing special, so Sivers is nothing special. Meanwhile $NVDA is just funding every CPO program $2B from $MRVL to $LITE to $COHR left and right. Cool thing about X is you learn something new every day interacting with global audiences.

Just putting out there... Would have been +15.02% in 2W equal-weighted return. On 30 different stocks... mostly medium-large cap. 1. $INTC +29.62% 2. $MRVL +40.95% 3. $TSM +4.72% 4. $COHR +18.9% 5. $RKLB +26.76% 6. $DRAM +12.29% 7. $AVGO +18.32% 8. $AMZN +9.17% 9. $ARM +36.6% 10. $TSEM -1.25% 11. $IBIT +7.68% 12. $NBIS +15.22% 13. $GOOGL +6.41% 14. $AMKR +32.25% 15. $HOOD +19.14% 16. $CRCL +17.58% 17. $META +4.9% 18. $LITE -5.28% 19. $LPTH +20.23% 20. $FN +11.54% 21. $JBL +15.45% 22. $MP +17.48% 23. $HIMS +42.53% 24. $SMTC +18.83% 25. $POWL +9.26% 26. $VPG +17.44% 27. $MOG.A -3.96% 28. $MSFT +11.44% 29. $CVX -1.47% 30. $XLU -2.29% Obviously short timeframe, but I expect many of these to keep going up more. And probably would have been higher if you time the drop on specific names, rather than going long all at once. Not too shabby?

Not the best idea to feel FOMO about the new “bottleneck” in every news cycle. It’s going from: $NVDA GPUs -> $MU Memory -> $IREN Power -> $LITE EMLs -> $SNDK Memory -> GPUs -> $AAOI transceivers -> Advanced Packaging -> Transformers -> $INTC CPUs… etc And next would be stuff like $LPK glass substrates or some random niche material from Japan. Most of these span multi-years. If $LITE is sold out into 2028 and it’s H1 2026. Hyperscalers are buying out anything $AAOI can make. It’s probably good idea to just be patient with your existing positions. Because there’s likely going to be some random green candle that you miss out on chasing the current news cycle.

All the hyperscalers $SIVE likely ends up in 2027-2028 is staggering at a $900m MC. Markets don't understand what's coming. From speculative mapping: > $SIVE -> $POET -> $MRVL -> 1. $AMZN (purchase agreement/warrants with photonic fabric from celestial) 2. $MSFT (maia) 3. $GOOGL (recent development talks with Marvell) $SIVE powers Poet Starlight/optical interposers, and Poet's CFO confirmed they're supplying to Marvell few days ago. > $SIVE -> $POET -> "NDAs other hyperscaler suppliers" 1. Western Hyperscalers > $SIVE -> $JBL (1.6T LRO)-> 1. $META (Jabil $INTC SiPH inheritance, maps to Meta LRO program) 2. $NVDA (NVIDIA possibly OEMs optical transceivers) -> $MSFT | AWS | hyperscalers $SIVE is the confirmed laser source for $JBL 1.6T optical transceivers. > $SIVE -> Ayar ($500m fundraiser last month for volume ramp) -> 1. Alchip (Joint CPO) 2. Intel 3. GUC/Wiwynn -> $AMZN (Alchip) -> $AMD (CPO from $GFS partnership) possible. $SIVE is known laser supplier to Ayar, and Ayar removed $MTSI / $LITE from their website recently. Only showing $GFS + $SIVE, likely showing Sivers was primary laser supplier. As $GFS x $AMD partnered up recently, that makes Siver a possible core laser supplier for $AMD's CPO program if they go with Ayar. > $SIVE -> Enablence -> O-Net (massive Asian OEM)-> Asian Hyperscalers 1. $AVGO ELS (possible) 2. $META and $GOOGL ELS 3. ByteDance (possible) -> ELS 4. Tencent (possible) -> ELS 5. Alibaba (possible) -> ELS $SIVE ELS partnership with O-Net/Enablence around OFC. Sivers lasers is mass produced by foundries like Win Semi... and they're validated in $GFS CPO supply chains too from their recent image presentations. It's not about what Sivers is forecasting today from qualification revenue that everyone models off of. Alpha comes from future revenue proportional to demand from every Western/Asian hyperscaler for CPO/1.6T in 2027, 2028, 2029, and onward. $SIVE looks like one of the most unknown photonic stocks on the market that's yet to come.

Woah... Sivers looks like the primary laser supplier to $AMD's CPO program if AMD goes the Ayar route at $GFS. The interesting thing is: $LITE and $MTSI were silently removed from Ayar's website sequentially over time. (Special thanks to one of my followers Setian for the DM.) So $SIVE likely became the primary laser supplier for Ayar first-gen... and by extension for all of Ayar's customers routing through Alchip or other ASIC design firms. Ayar also raised $500M last month for VOLUME PRODUCTION, where $SIVE is designed in. This find looks structurally massive for $SIVE as it undercuts narratives about $LITE and others being primary suppliers. And especially about $SIVE having only a small % laser share for CPO if they're likely to be the primary laser supplier.

The $AMD and $GFS CPO announcement is probably bigger than markets expect for $SIVE. With the news, it's likely $SIVE lasers power $AMD's CPO program. Either through two potential paths: 1. Enosemi (AMD's in-house PIC design post-acquisition). Enosemi's chiplets are fabbed at GF but for the ELS, $AMD could source it from multiple players with $SIVE as the underlying multi-source laser source. 2. Ayar ( $AMD invested in March 2026, Series E). Ayar's SuperNova light source already uses $SIVE DFB laser arrays alongside $LITE. Ayar's SuperNova is the most likely first-gen CPO path for MI500 in 2027 given timelines and the enormous fundraise last month. That path already has $SIVE designed in alongside $LITE and they both appear with $GFS's slide. Enosemi becomes more relevant for 2028+ generations? Regardless, $AMD through Enosemi/Ayar needs lasers for their 2027 MI500 rollout... It seems likely Sivers ends up powering $AMD's CPO program as the light source since they're designed into Ayar. The $AMD / $GFS materiality looks large for Sivers.

What a crazy timeline? Today, $AMD announced it's pushing into CPO and collaborating with $GFS. This is highly bullish for $SIVE since for CPO/SiPH, it requires external laser light source. And... guess who are the two public laser suppliers in the GlobalFoundries CPO ecosystem? $SIVE (~$935m) and $LITE (~$64 billion) Sivers lasers feel like they could be everywhere now in upcoming hyperscaler CPO/1.6T deployments. So... if Sivers secures the spot to provide the laser arrays for the $AMD Instinct MI500's CPO solution in 2027. (Which seems highly possible given there’s only three laser names listed + hyperscalers like to multi-source) This might represent massive, high volume production for Sivers that markets haven't pricing in.

Global Foundries photonics/CPO ecosystem list: 1. $GFS - $30.5B 2. $CDNS - $85.9B 3. $SEIGY - $217.2B 4. $SNPS - $84B 5. $KEYS - $57.3B 6. $ATEYY - $130.4B 7. RoboTechnik (ficonTEC) - $11.4B 8. $GLW - $141.2B 9. $LITE - $63.8B 10. $SIVE - $950m 11. $FN - $24.7B 12. $ASX - $63.3B For publicly traded names. Equal weighted long on the ecosystem from their presentation might not be a bad idea? I still find it funny how everything publicly listed is trading in the tens of billions. Then there's some small Swedish laser company there next to $LITE.

Did $GFS give the first direct confirmation about $SIVE... As the laser supplier for their CPO / photonics ecosystem? This is explicit laser architectural inclusion vs. previous supply chain mapping with Ayar/Celestial. You get a hint of the other major players here: - $FN / $ASX for assembly - $LITE / $SIVE for lasers - $ATEYY / $KEYS for testing. There's no text-based news yet, since this was the $GFS March 2026 webinar image-based presentation. But having a <$1B company on the tiny list of laser providers next to $LITE... Quite special right?

Frontrunning 1.6T/CPO within the broader photonics supercycle is the most compelling investment to me. I have high conviction in that statement. Which is why I'm long the entire supply chain (+1 extra bottlenecK) 1. $SIVE - Their laser revenue scales aggressively with $JBL, $MRVL, Ayar, O-Net. And I do think CPO/1.6T will blow away any conservative analyst projections from how hard $NVDA, $GOOGL, and others have been pushing photonics architectures. Downside risk is multi-sourcing, but there's a reason Jabil chose Sivers. When you compare $MTSI, $LITE, $COHR, Furukawa, and others. There's genuinely not many laser suppliers in the entire world... they're all $10B+, then you have this mini CHIPS act chokepoint trading at <$1B MC. 2. Shunsin (6451) - I don't see how it's possible Foxconn's optical foundry for testing, packaging, and assembly is valued at $1.5B MC less than $LWLG. When they look extremely derisked piggybacking off of Foxconn's photonics volume. $TSM's optical arm VisEra example is ~$5B, but they scale H2 2028 from Gen-3. Foxconn looks to be ramping up just next year. They're just scaling low fwd p/e multiples off of $NVDA CPO supply chain demand in Taiwan and all public indicators point to capacity expansion + extreme demand. 3. Win Semi - They're the foundry for Sivers to scale up DFB laser production. As well as $AVGO, SpaceX supply chains and others. When I do supply chain mapping and Win Semi pops up in every single frontier supply chain I see. There's probably something markets are not pricing in. 4. $MRVL - I find this genuinely compelling as a mini-Broadcomm. Their potential design with with $GOOGL today, helps the case past 2028. But the catalyst I was looking at was $MSFT Maia ramp, which happens H2 2026, and likely keep scaling up exponentially into 2027, 2028, 2029. Celestial acquisition was probably the smartest thing in the world for them. Maybe on next drop or CSP? 5. $HPS.A - Transformers/Switchgears are commodities + boring parts of the DC supply chain. However, when the bottleneck is 2-5 years, and you have backlog increasing 100%+... causing extreme shortages. It's only up 20%+ since my thesis post, but I do see this being de-risked given massive backlog visibility (even though it's inferred, they don't give exact #). I do think markets are missing something, especially with potential gross margin expansion from price hikes if they pull it off.... Again backlog + demand just de-risks this company, and it seems like a high growth compounder post facility expansion last year. There's many others like $NBIS, $JBL, $RPI, $TSEM, $LITE, $ARM, $SOI, $AXTI, $IQE, $ALRIB, Fittech, PCL, and others that I'm very fond of, but just mentioning 5 off the top of my head from today's prices... if I'm creating a new portfolio. Of course, it's good to barbell with other uncorrelated companies to AI supply chains, but these are just 5 I liked.

Wow, majority of these 30 stocks I’ve liked are up a lot in just two weeks (just a recap to new folks) By the way, my long term opinion doesn’t change on any of them from $MRVL, $AMD, $ARM and others. Short term entry points do though with names like $AAOI to $AEHR. And they make the difference between +10-20%. I focus a lot about the “undiscovered” ones like Riber or $SIVE or $RPI or $IQE in analysis when I make a new entry -> wait for it to play out. But the same thesis around $LITE or $NBIS or $AXTI from last year is still the same. And I don’t need to post that same thesis multiple times, since it’s not new anymore. But the reason they’re not new is because markets have validated the thesis and are repricing the stocks live because of them.

Genuinely thanks for nice comments. I share my ideas for free in the end though since I want to help out the retail community. $TSEM hit triple digit return... so that's 16 different names YTD. So my YTD hit 1525%+ as a result. Just to recap all the endless abuse and harassment along the way: 1. $AXTI - "Pump and Dump", "Scam Chinese Stock", Got banned from WSB $RDDT after Mods got mad investors actually made money AXT going from $12->$80. 2. $AAOI - "Pumping stock with no fundamentals, Meme stock" 3. $SIVEF - "Pump and Dump" "Meme Stock" 4. $LITE - "Photonics Bubble" 5. $IQE - "Just pumping low MC stocks" 6. $AEHR - "Stock with negative revenue growth, why is anyone following this guy and not paying $2,000+ for my subscription?" 7. $CRCL - "TA says it's going down to $30" 8. $EWY - "Just from followers" (hint, it's the South Korean Index) 9. Unimicron - "Idea is useless give me US stocks" 10. Nitto Boseki - "Idea is useless give me US stocks" 11. $OSS - Stealing Ideas (no, my synthesis around Venezuela was novel) 12. $GDRZF - "You're a terrible human trying to profit off of the War in Venezuela" 13. $RPI - "Meme stock all because of a Meme Trader" (FT, European Media). 14. $SOI - "Pump and dump", "no novel idea" (random analysts) 15. $ALRIB - "Pumping low MC stocks" (no, it's $MSFT quantum information discovery) 16. $TSEM - "Pumping based on followers alone" (bro it's $25B+, these are institutions) Or how about... the idea around fundamentals was right all along? And I'm just sharing information synthesis/discovery before institutions find out about them. Retail and media should be celebrating when 16+ different ideas return 100%+ YTD, since stocks are positive sum. Everyone from retail, the companies, and local economies benefits. Instead, negativity is through the roof and people keep trying to diminish/downplay the ideas like frontrunning the photonics supercycle… even when they actually turn out right? The trolls are starting to get to me, from $IREN folks creating new accounts every day just to send IRL threats, to European media disinformation about "pumping and dumping"... since I do read every comment. But notice... how 95% of things keep going up? And institutions like Point72 and Apollo end up buying the names I mention? Comments like this do make it helpful to stay on X, and I do enjoy taking victory laps on the haters.

Glad to hear it! I've went long and wrote thesis posts on about out 15 different stocks that hit 100-1000%+ YTD? 1. $AXTI 2. $AAOI 3. $SIVEF 4. $LITE 5. $IQE 6. $AEHR 7. $CRCL 8. $EWY 9. Unimicron 10. Nitto Boseki 11. $OSS 12. $GDRZF 13. $RPI 14. $SOI 15. $ALRIB Not including others like $TSEM that are about to hit triple digit returns too in a month. The amount of hate people like myself get for posting free ideas over the internet is pretty insane TBH. Starting to make sense why people just set up $20,000 paywalls and sell info to Western institutions instead of helping out salty retail investors (especially over in Europe). But helps me keep motivated to keep posting with these positive comments.

$SIVE is on its journey to be $LITE . In the last 2 days: > $JBL confirmation of using $SIVE lasers for their 1.6T optical transceivers > Sivers raises $13.5M+ from long term institutional investors (eg. pension funds/institutional investors), de-risking balance sheet issues > $SIVE plans to list on US NASDAQ. What a crazy turn of events? I still think it's heading to $2B+ MC in the near term. Especially as shares transfer from local Swedish investors to Western funds/investors who understand what’s up and coming with photonics.

$SIVE executing US NASDAQ listing from Reuters. Welcome to America Sivers. I said Sivers looks like it should be valued at $2B+ soon based on today's fundamentals. And US institutions will likely be piling into the laser supplier for $MRVL and $JBL once it's on NASDAQ. This comes after a highly bullish 2.5% raise today from new "international institutional investors" to likely fund regulatory/audit requirements for the listing. "The investors in the Directed Share Issue comprise of a limited number of Swedish and international institutional and other qualified investors" We’ll likely going to see a parabolic ride up from the news. In just the last three days: -> $JBL 1.6T to use $SIVE -> $SIVE new US/international institutional investors -> $SIVE looks to be listed on NASDAQ. We're witnessing the birth of the next $LITE.

No. This type of BS mindset needs to stop. What I do is point them out to retail first before the 100-500%+ returns. US institutions like Point72 or Apollo would have bought them out eventually. 1. $IQE went up because they're sitting on the most latent merchant capacity in the world for InP reactors back at a 100M euro marketcap. While companies like Landmark were trading at $3.8B. They were also the supplier to $LITE, and photonics/epiwafer demand took off this year. 2. $SIVE went up because they had new deals with $JBL and O-Net. But they were already unknown as the laser supplier to $MRVL's CPO program when I first went long. American institutions like $AVGO would have likely just bought the company directly like what Qualcomm did with Alphawave over in the openlight side of things if I didn't bring attention to it. Then Swedish retail investors wouldn't get any of the upside. 3. $ALRIB went up because their earnings sent their P/E down to fwd 26, despite holding a duopoly in the MBE category with $VECO. This combined with new SiPH equipment, as well as $IQE + QD Laser (for quantum dot) being their customers. This was combined from raw information discovery of the decade that $MSFT Quantum was their buyer. You don't see direct hyperscaler frontier programs in quantum computing dependant on some <$1B MC company. 4. $SOI is up 208% because it has an unknown monopoly over SOI substrates for silicon photonics and CPO. This was more information synthesis combined with timing the bottom of their legacy cycle. 5. $RPI went up because of earnings and AI hardware usage. I was just the very first person to point it out. I projected 55% revenue growth compared to 14% from analysts. They did 58%. I just gave retail the chance to buy it before institutions. The stock would have gone up off of pure fundamentals without me posting my thesis because you don't do $511m in revenue off a $500m MC as a fabless company. I'm just giving retail the all the information discovery before institutions have a chance to find it and price it in. This is a completely different model than the same institutions telling you to buy index funds or stocks that already went up 1500% so you're exit liquidity.

I really meant it when I thought $SIVE could be valued at $2B today. When do you ever find a critical laser supplier to $MRVL, $JBL, and Hyperscaler supply chains... At $620m MC? You can't... Since there's only a few in the world. And the rest in hyperscaler supply chains from $LITE to $MTSI are in the tens of billions...

$SIVE is the next $LITE at $560m MC. Institutions just got full confirmation today: Sivers is now the light source in hyperscaler supply chains and the direct supplier of $JBL optical transceivers. It’s only a matter of time. https://t.co/Eh9GherJTV

Enplas (6961) at ~$985M seems kinda interesting. 
They hold two chokepoints: 1. Dominant supplier for MLAs (micro lens arrays). Eg. SiPH switches, 1.6T, 3.2T for photonics. 
 2. Oligopoly supplier for IC Test sockets (AI Chip Testing) Cash on hand: ~$155M, no debt. Equity-to-Asset Ratio: ~89% (50%+ usually is solid), so low downside risk imo. 
And their speculated customers: 1, Photonics (MLAs): Highly probable: Innolight, Eoptolink, Furukawa, Intel (SiPh). And prob $COHR, $LITE. 2. GPU/ASICs (Test Sockets): prob $TSM, ASE, types use these to likely test $NVDA GPUs, $GOOGL TPUs (Google Ironwood is highly probable). "expanding mass production orders for major GPU manufacturers, and for ASIC-related projects for hyperscalers."
 Then at OFC: OFC: “We will be showcasing our new products for 800Gbps and 1.6Tbps transceivers and CPO (Co-Packaged Optics) that support today’s rapid technological advancements in AI.” Basically you have a company that supplies T1 semis, foundries, hyperscalers, that benefits from 1.6T from MLA photonics segment + CPO TAM expansion later from OFC products. Was one my positions wanted to share my thoughts about since it seemed p cool at sub <$1B MC.

$RPI hit triple digit % return intraday today, just 2 months later. That’s 14 different stocks I’ve called YTD from $AAOI to $LITE that hit 100%+ returns. Maybe if I’m able to write a thesis on 14 separate longs that double in a short time period… I’m decent at it? I was the first person to long it as AI agentic hardware orchestration. But everyone called my thesis a "Meme" back in Feb. (Special S/O to FT, Reuters, Bloomberg) But I called out revenue acceleration expecting a 3x beat compared to consensus. And their earnings report validated my estimates. It's now being re-rated as an AI hardware company.

A Guide by Serenity: How to Cripple the Western Hyperscaler buildout with just $170m. Just take over Nippon Chemical (4092) with $169m! For InP substrates, you need: Indium and High Purity Phosphorus. Thought $AXTI was a bottleneck? NCI is the bottleneck of the bottleneck. NCI is actually the leader of the high purity red phosphorus chokepoint holding 26-27% of the market share (Rasa has less share, then the rest is China). And they export to $AXTI, Sumitomo, JX that need it to make InP substrates. 
So… if you have $160m to spend to acquire NCI (plus Rasa as smaller capacity), you can remove the leading Western world’s production of 6N/7N red phosphorus needed to make InP substrates! And without InP substrates: no photonics. Fun fact: China’s tech companies would get pretty disrupted with it too by NCI. For $AXTI, the mapping/reliance is actually pretty interesting: - AXT's Tongmei outlined its structural reliance on importing high-purity precursor materials from Japan on their STAR Market listing 
- WITS data showing ~$460/kg high-purity phosphorus flowing from Japan into China So they secretly do depend on NCI. 
China does have capacity like Wylton Chemical, Qin Xi New Materials, Jinding Electronics, and Chuxiong Chuanzhi, Guizhou Wylton Jinglin Electronic Materials as well. However, they’re all smaller players so can’t make up for high purity red phosphorus capacity provided by NCI for InP substrate production at scale. $LITE CEO already said inp substrates keeps him up at night. So now with NCI, you can give the guy permanent insomnia? For just $169M. So here's what the supply chain looks like: -> DGC phosphate rock mine and ships it to NCI -> NCI refines Yellow Phosphorus into High Purity Red Phosphorus -> Sumitomo / JX / AXT melt the Red Phosphorus with Indium to grow InP Substrates -> $COHR / $LITE fab InP substrates into Lasers -> Innolight/Fabrinet package them into 800G/1.6T transceivers -> $NVDA / $GOOGL use them for ASIC/GPU clusters. 
And basically, the entire West depends on NCI to make InP substrates for photonics. I hold some very small positions, just for fun. However, Japan is not well known for price hiking. So you’d probably run into regulatory problems eg. FEFTA if you bought the company and hiked prices 15000% (like government seizing back the company once they realize)… Maybe 30-50% hikes is possible to compress fwd p/e? But very likely wont end up like $AXTI. 
 Regardless, this company is a massive, massive national security risk priced at ~$160m. As for fundamentals, they’re trading at .54 book value and a forward P/E of 11.4 so it’s probably undervalued anyway. TLDR: -> Is it the next $AXTI? No. -> Is it an unknown structural bottleneck + critical vulnerability of the Western hyperscaler buildout with photonics? Yes. -> Is there still room for re-rating? Just reverting to Book Value of 1 is immediate 80-85% upside. Maybe more if you give it multiples past 11 fwd p/e. Regardless, it’s fun to find a major point of failure in the hyperscaler supply chains for $169m.

They’re still there. It’s just hard to say anything…. When all my recent thesis posts from $HPS.A, $IQE, $AXTI, $SIVE, $AAOI, $LITE, $NBIS, Win, Shunsin, $AEHR, $TSEM, $SOI, and many many others I call out. Just hard outperforms the market. Year to date of +1,116.29% isn’t too bad, right chat?

I actually thought $SIVE should be trading at $2B+ MC today (from ~$520m) if they were listed as a US company. Not later this year. Since I’m not sure how: - $LWLG trades at 3.5x+ the valuation - packaging companies that buy their lasers trade at 5-6x their valuation. - laser companies from $MTSI to $LITE have premiums trading in the tens of billions. And Sivers are in hyperscaler supply chains through $MRVL, $JBL, O-Net, and others rather than being dependent on one customer. There’s not very many publicly listed AI DC laser companies in the world either. So either it’s a highly sought after acquisition target for $AVGO or $MRVL that want to vertically integrate upstream. Or they can pull a $LITE that went from $17->$800 and downstream TAM expansion the ELS/optical transceiver stack through IP acquisitions. Depends how ambitious the company is of course but i just don’t think anyone noticed this laser supplier in Sweden since my thesis post. Just might require a little patience for the US listing and I’m almost certain US institutions are interested like they were with $IQE. DD periods usually last a few weeks after they read my thesis but I see a clear path to $10B+ MC from here over the next few years.

Pretty confident about $SIVE regarding institutions coming in next. Laser supplier for $MRVL, $JBL, and a few others. Valuation disconnect makes no sense when they’re designed into hyperscaler supply chains at ~$430M. And you look at CPO and 1.6T transceiver ramp over next few years, it’s insanity. It looks like the start of the next $LITE over the next year, imo institutions probably late to the party due to Swedish listing.

Didn’t I tell you all it’s possible retail can frontrun institutions anon?? -> Point72 is aggressively buying up $IQE 2 months later at ATHs... After my latent InP reactor capacity + $LITE supplier thesis post. -> Apollo literally bought out NSG, the $TSM COUPE glass provider I identified. -> And I've identified many others like $SIVE, the $MRVL / $JBL supplier to Riber the unknown quantum supplier to $MSFT (with the help of a friend) recently. I happen to like democratizing information discovery/synthesis to retail investors at the very beginning… Instead of selling analysis to institutions or behind $20000+ paywalls. Stocks are genuinely positive sum where retail can get the lead for the first time.

Honestly... I don't even know at this point? 0 to 155,000+ followers, 10,000 subscribers... in under a year. 900%+ year to date... Off 13+ individual stocks from $AAOI to $LITE hitting triple digits returns in 4 months. Call me aura farming Serenity Jin-woo (last post about this topic i swear, 10,000 just looks cool). Jokes aside, thanks everyone for this opportunity. I genuinely want to make a difference to the retail community. Getting tired of institutions shafting retail or seeing $2000+ paywalls so hope to bridge the gap in information discovery/synthesis.

am i that powerful? pretty sure it's just information synthesis + discovery. If I posted about a napkin company trading at 8 p/e, nobody would care. When $SIVE is the light source for $JBL and $MRVL at ~400m... and trades at like 1/4th the valuation of something more speculative like $LWLG. while all the other CW DFB companies like $MTSI or $LITE are all in the tens of billions. Information ends up drawing people's attention, not the person.

$NVDA is driving CPO, extremely, extremely hard. As seen with investments in $MRVL, $LITE, and $COHR. But, what's interesting is: CPO timelines are also happening way earlier than expected. New report: " $ASE Reportedly to Break Ground on Six New Plants in 2026, CPO Mass Production Expected to Begin This Year " "He also revealed for the first time that mass production of CPO is expected to begin this year" Probably a good time to frontrun CPO related names like $SIVE (lasers), Win Semi (foundry), $TSEM (foundry), $SOI (substrates), and others around now, before ramp really picks up. The demand curve goes up exponentially all the way past 2029+, and I'm sure they'll break many projections. But basically, I was talking about frontrunning CPO/SiPH names before OFC/GTC. Turned out I was right on timing again? CPO Ramp now looks like it's beginning H2 2026, get ready.

I feel like I've called out the most triple digit stock returns YTD... Out of anyone in history? Hence why I have 150k+ followers now! In just a short timeframe: $AXTI -> 5x+ $AAOI -> 5x $SIVE -> 2x+ $LITE -> 2x+ $IQE -> 2x+ $AEHR -> 2x+ $CRCL -> 2x+ $EWY IV -> 2x Unimicron -> 2x+ Nitto Boseki -> 2x+ $OSS -> 2x+ $GDRZF -> 2x+ $AEHR -> 2x With many more like $TSEM, $RPI having close to triple digit returns. Not including many others last year like $HOOD or $RKLB for triple digit returns, just this YTD. There's stuff like $FORM and others like Macronix... and $NBIS that actually doubled from the bottom at $70. But I won't take credit since I didn't do a specific post about it during the timeframes. There's a difference between just mentioning among many other tickers. Then having conviction like myself, writing a specific thesis post about it, getting catalyst timing right, and going long yourself. But proud if this helped retail going the right direction. Especially that they don’t need to pay $2,000+ just to see tickers people go long on or join some “special club” for company discussion.

So private placement is ~9.4% dilution via 40M new shares via Win Semi (3105). Any other stock I'd be cautious... but last time Win did this, $AVGO took a stake in Win Semi. And Broadcom became their lead customer. Maybe T1 semi like $NVDA, given their recent funding of $MRVL, $LITE, $COHR. There's also a 3 year holding period. I said before Win Semi is foundational to photonics, humanoids, and space (eg. SpaceX) and it's likely another T1 customer using them long term. It's nuanced but actually bullish.

Yeah… I’m cooking super hard. $AAOI +10.65% People aren’t bullish enough after the new $LITE backlog report. The demand visibility lasts past 2029 for optical companies… https://t.co/XCh0QUFPUl

I'm not sure people understand yet: $LITE backlog order fill into 2028 signals extreme demand. And a lack of capacity. Then by second order effect of hyperscaler demand spillover: Guess who is projected to have the largest 800G/1.6T capacity in America? $AAOI. They fab their own inp lasers, design their own transceivers, and assemble it. If $AAOI can execute on capacity ramp, that likely all translates into revenue due to everything being sold out. My $40B MC price target from $5B is starting to look more and more likely?

There's many nuanced architectural changes for "supercycles" in photonics. If you feel like you missed $LITE from last year, just frontrun the next cycle with CPO / lasers. $SIVE was my lesser known pick for laser exposure. They're in $JBL 1.6T LRO, $MRVL via Celestial, O-Net -> Hyperscalers. Which is extremely abnormal for a ~$350M MC company. If I had to draw parallels: it's similar to $AAOI 2025 or $AEHR now with current qualification cycles before volume. Which is why retail misunderstands it when you look at purely financial numbers today with negative eps or capex spend. And a lot of that execution uncertainty with volume production / capex spend for scaling dfb laser is de-risked from Win Semi. However, it looks to just keep ramping past 2029+ starting from H2 2026. Might be a little early... But I think it's a decent read on what's up and coming. Dilution is a real risk. But a lot of fears are priced into its ~$350M MC, especially when a company like $AVGO or AlChip can just buy $SIVE for vertical integration or to troll Marvell’s CPO program.

We're now in the photonics supercycle. The trio from $COHR, $LITE, $AAOI in America are expected to perform well from a surge in demand. New Report: " Lumentum is experiencing a surge in demand from the artificial intelligence sector, with its order pipeline now fully booked through 2028 "

Just in case you’re wondering why $AMZN rallied today: New news that Anthropic Mythos and their latest models were likely trained on Amazon Trainium. This is big for Amazon’s ecosystem from $MRVL to $AAOI due to Anthropic. Just like how Google’s TPU ecosystem rallied earlier this year like $LITE from Gemini.

Here's a bunch of random 30 US-available random stocks I like today and why: 1. $INTC - America's hope for foundry, national security 2. $MRVL - scales rev from future maia asics and add ons like cpo, they do everything lost count 3. $TSM - backbone of semis/ai 4. $COHR - They do everything vertically integrated + captures optical cycle 5. $RKLB - the final frontier of space will be around 5 years from now and 20 years from now. 6. $DRAM - memory exposure for samsung/sk hynix 7. $AVGO - hyperscalers dont like nvidia gpu tax 8. $AMZN - nobody can compete against the overnight shipping of toilet paper. robotics will lower opex over time 9. $ARM - AGI CPUs scale revenue quite a bit over the next decade 10. $TSEM - you're going to need a foundry for light based stuff 11. $IBIT - bitcoin, we all know by now 12. $NBIS - i think it's the next AWS. Also they do self-driving cars with uber, own scaling DB companies, data labeling. It's almost like a mini Google. 13. $GOOGL - youtube is not going away, gemini is great. they're vertically integrated with TPUs and fund buildout with operating income so i like it. 14. $AMKR - super facilities coming online in late 2027-2028. benefits from made in america 15. $HOOD - i dont like short term, but long term i'm a fan of Robinhood since they captured retail + have more products like banking, etc that they're scaling up. product innovation is wild. 16. $CRCL - I happen to really like stablecoins and see them as the future for both payments/holding (depends on clarity act) 17. $META - people aren't going to stop using instagram or whatsapp, or others anytime soon. 18. $LITE - $GOOGL TPU exposure decently high part of BOM. As long as Google's AI program keeps running I think $LITE will do well. 19. $LPTH - Germanium and China export controls will always be an issue so US made engineered alternatives will always be important 20. $FN - Someone needs to assemble optical stuff 21. $JBL - same as above, but added with ip from Intel's SiPh acqusition so might end up like innolight? 22. $MP - American rare earths program is extremely important, similar to $INTC national security risks 23. $HIMS - Okay here me out they just acquired a ton of companies, and at $19 they have global DTC channel. short sellers really hate this company, but I think it's actually promising as a contrarian long 24. $SMTC - LRO/LPO transition 25. $POWL - US alternative to hammond for switchgear DC type bottleneck 26. $VPG - Humanoids will be a thing down the road maybe 2027-2028, this makes the sensors. 27. $MOG.A - Feels like i see them everywhere in robotics, to spacex supply chains 28. $MSFT - At $375, one day we'll look back and see this as a buying opportunity. 29. $CVX - oil might crash after war but these oil companies are going to be extremely important, especially when Venezulea is a goldmine. 30. $XLU - i think rate cuts might be back online, we need power/grid for AI so these names will always be improtant from $CEG to $NEE Just throwing out other thoughts aside from $AAOI and $AEHR.

Did you listen anon??? My high conviction long $AAOI is up extreme amounts. Post from 2025 around hyperscalers: “We’ll likely see investments pour to players like $COHR, Innolight, $LITE, and $AAOI as a theme in 2026.” Thesis. Validation. Live. https://t.co/A3V6eRaXeH

This has gotta be the biggest taco supreme I’ve ever seen? Yesterday: “GG Iran as a civilization” Today: “Hurray for World Peace, Iran can reconstruct, US is helping flow of passage through the strait. Big money to be made” Too many shorts on $AAOI to $LITE and $SMH right now that might be screwed.

Walked into the HQ to ask about Claude Opus bottlenecks with $NVDA GPU clusters and $LITE optical scale out. I asked to see the new Mythos models, they showed me a plant. It’s clear OpenAi and xAI has better talent. https://t.co/LXlyghhdeJ

I get a sense of pride when I see a thesis playing out well real time. $LITE $371 -> $836 in the last 4 months. Not bad for a $58B company despite macro? This is while indexes and individual stocks. And photonic stocks like $POET and individual stocks like $RDDT dropped YTD. I tend to like laser companies the most from $SIVE, $AAOI, and Lumentum for photonics exposure. And in a better macro environment, I expect many of them to be up more than they are now.

For the next photonics CW laser chokepoint. Personal high-beta exposure tierlist: 1. $SIVE: $302m 2. $AAOI: $8.35B 3. Yuanjie (688498): $13.55B 4. $MTSI: $17.4B 5. $LITE: $56.1B 6. $COHR: $49.2B 7. Suzhou Everbright: $5.95B 8. LuxNet (4979.TWO): $1.7B 9. Henan Shijia (SHA: 688313): $6.2B 10. Furukawa Electric (TYO: 5801): $16.06B 11. Sumitomo Electric (TYO: 5802): $45.113B 12. Mitsubishi Electric (TYO: 6503): $71.2B 13. $AVGO: $1.53T Ended up taking the highest exposure picks personally (but avoided HK listed names due to conflict of interest).

The nice thing about multi-year bottlenecks from: $HPS.A to $SNDK to $LITE Is that you can sleep a easier despite market volatility like today. Knowing demand will be extreme even 1 year... Even if Trump wants to nuke Bikini Bottom and other companies might be more impacted: -> One has a huge market share over Transformers -> One has huge market share over NAND -> One has huge market share over EML/OCS. And the one thing in common is that they're all likely backlogged on orders into 2028. Signaling near-guaranteed fundamental revenue and likely margin expansion into the next year. It's H1 2026 now.

What a sleeper OP pick. Still almost nobody talks about Win Semi ($3105.TWO)… From $LITE to $SIVE. And $AAPL to $AVGO to SpaceX. Feels like everyone uses them? $5.4B price tag is underselling its importance to robotics, space, and AI hyperscaler supply chains imo. https://t.co/lMg92KzufM

Please stop trying to model 2025-2026 revenue for future CPO/SiPH ramp… When I looked at $TSEM back at ~$115 last month (round to $200 now). The forward p/e compressed to rates like ~16-18 (down to 10-12 in growth scenarios) Same applies to $AEHR / $SIVE / $SOI /Win Semi and other names. This is H1 2026. Volume ramp hits H2 2026. We’re at the very beginning of a massive supercycle and these are my more pure play exposure picks for the next architectural changes in photonics: For testing, cw lasers, substrates, and foundries in next paradigm shift in the photonics supercycle. Companies like $LITE or $AAOI that I’ve longed last year cover multiple cycles. However, the most returns comes from anticipating what benefits the most Mc wise relative to future revenue/TAM growth (not priced into current earnings). Not looking back at 2 year historical returns to calculate fair value. And when we’re looking at massive new photonics TAM ($110B+ bull case from lightcounting), largely driven from architecture that use CW lasers as an example or struggle with yields. A lot of these companies are likely going to re-rate hard. Especially when you look at the start of the next architectural changes, happening around H2 2026.

I got cited by Bezinga today after I made fun of Jim Cramer. They included my quote: “Thanks for saving $MSFT Jim”. But in the title they called me a Meme Trader… I didn’t know all my longs in AI supply chain bottlenecks from $AXTI to $LITE were memes? Always appreciate the news coverage though… especially if it’s comments around Cramer on Bezinga or Burry on Yahoo Finance.

I just realized… hit 5,118.02% returns last week. 5000%+ not too bad in <2 years? Hard to keep up with $5 footlong sandwich inflation even after front running: -> $MSTR for halving -> $RKLB and $HOOD for space/fintech rally -> $GOOGL and $TSM for large cap rally -> Samsung, SK Hynix, Asian equities for memory -> $LITE, $AXTI, and $COHR for EML/photonics -> $SOI, $SIVE, $AEHR, $TSEM, Win for CW/SiPH/CPO. Some side quests here and there with Venezuelan natural resource companies and drones (that didn’t turn out as well). But generally market read has been decent so far on what’s coming next. And I do think scale up photonics is next, especially focusing on CW laser companies, substrates, testing and foundries.

Lightcounting: "This is not a typo" Optical interconnects has a reasonable chance to reach $100B+ by 2030 from ~$19B (2025). If you're looking for my favorite names: Compounders: $MRVL, $SMTC CW Lasers: $SIVE, $MTSI, $AAOI Foundries $TSEM, Win Semi Substrates/Epitaxy: $AXTI, $SOI, $IQE Gold Standard: $LITE, $COHR The next TAM expansion multiplier is CPO/Scale Up, largely driven by SiPh and external CW lasers.

The market are missing the implications from $NVDA investing: $2B into $COHR for optical. $2B into $LITE for optical. and $2B into $MRVL for optical today. Nvidia did this exact same playbook last year. They realized the push to 800G/1.6T pluggables would exhaust the global supply of EML. So they approached $LITE, $COHR, Sumitomo, and preallocated majority of production. And we've seen this reflected in their share price with $LITE rising 955% since the major supply squeeze. We're seeing the beginning of the same playbook happen now over the last month. Just for a new architecture, this time. As these deals included multibillion-dollar purchase commitments and future capacity rights. So... what's next? CW/EML and CPO bottlenecks. Nvidia just prefers to invest in downstream players. But the supply crunch happens upstream. Laser suppliers from $MTSI, $SIVE, $LITE, $COHR, Furukawa, and Sumitomo are on overdrive. Foundries from Win Semi, $TSEM, $GFS are likely on overdrive. The entire supply chain benefits (eg. testing from $AEHR, substrates with $SOI). But these two segments from foundries to ELS/CW laser chokepoints are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries. Nvidia is the biggest signal of what's coming next; it's just a waiting period for the inflection point to hit.

Just look at $MRVL Celestial ( $SIVE is the light source at ~$290m ) as an example. Marvell bought it for $5.5B. ($3.25B + 2.25B milestones). 2026/2027 expectations: 0 revenue, -$50m loss 2028 expectations: $500m revenue 2029 expectations: $1B revenue. This is massive TAM expansion and revenue acceleration. This is just one of Sivers customer on top of O-Net, Ayar, other undisclosed CPO players, with Jabil bridging volume ramp and Win with yields. Random retail users with no understanding of photonics… are doing the equivalent of modeling Celestial at $50m because of no CPO revenue in 2025 2026. And because it’s operating at a net loss instead of looking at the massive ramp 2027 onward. $SIVE is my #1 pick for frontrunning the next architectural supercycles at the very beginning for ELS TAM expansion + CPO + CW laser chokepoints. If you want a later stage pick, you can look at $LITE that already ran 3800%.

Pls stop tagging me in stuff where random retail investors or journalists tries doing an analysis on $AXTI or $SIVE. For $AXTI: Majority of folks have 0 clue what they’re talking about. Samsung Foundry or $LITE InP fab are completely different parts of the supply chain and this is like conflating NAND and DRAM as memory. Even talking about Sumitomo displacing AXT means they don’t understand the upstream extraction/processing/crucible bottlenecks that InP substrate level players like $COHR or Sumitomo don’t do. For $SIVE: This is mass inflection point of CPO scale up 2027 onwards. I have idiots out there with no understanding of photonics looking at gross margin, burn rate, and former revenue numbers for previous years or even the current year. For the biggest architectural inflection 2027 onwards. If you look at $MRVL Celestial point its starting volume ramp 2027 and exponentially increasing 2028, 2029. That’s why I said $SIVE can be a $10B+ company one day since it’s looking at forward growth and this is the earliest out on. What I do is find alpha: This is what markets might have mispriced like all the analysts saying 14-17% fwd growth with $RPI. Then I modeled 55% and it turned out to be 58%. One is a photonics bottleneck for a reason. The other is designed into Jabil and Celestial for a reason.

Introducing the Strait of $AXTI: 20% of the world's total global oil supply passes through the Strait of Hormuz. It is the single most critical chokepoint in the global energy trade. Now... Double That with $LITE and $GOOGL instead of South Korea/Japan as recipients? Welcome to $AXTI. They control 40% of the InP supply chain. Both in the raw materials and processing. Two separate different bottlenecks (think of Iran producing oil, then shipping it through the Strait). So, if you 2x the chokepoint with the Hormuz oil bottleneck (but on AI industry level for photonics, instead of Country economies): You suddenly realize AXT's chokepoint (and China) on the photonics market. The current valuation is derived from strategic control. Then the main value comes when AXT exerts its control with price hikes: Since the AI buildout with photonics has no other choice at scale.

CPO Value Chain Summary from Mirae Asset: Laser Source: Coherent < $COHR > Lumentum < $LITE > Furukawa Electric (TYO: 5801) Yuanjie Semiconductor (SHA: 688498) Innolight Technology / Zhongji Innolight (SZSE: 300308) PIC Foundry: TSMC < $TSM > GlobalFoundries $GFS Samsung Electronics (KRX: 005930) Tower Semiconductor < $TSEM> EIC, Driver IC: Broadcom < $AVGO > Marvell < $MRVL > NVIDIA < $NVDA > ELS, Optical Engine Innolight / Zhongji Innolight (SZSE: 300308) TFC / Suzhou TFC Optical Communication (SZSE: 300394) O-Net Technologies Eoptolink Technology (SZSE: 300502) FAU (Fiber Array Unit): Senko Advanced Components (Private) Sumitomo Electric (TYO: 5802) TFC (SZSE: 300394) FOCI Fiber Optic Communications (TWO: 3363) FAU, Align Tools: ficonTEC (Private) All Ring Tech (TWO: 6187) ADST (Private) FAU, Engine Assembly: Fabrinet < $FN > Hon Hai / Foxconn (TWSE: 2317) ASE Technology < $ASX > FOCI (TWO: 3363) OSAT, Advanced Packaging: ASE Technology < $ASX > Amkor < $AMKR > Kyocera (TYO: 6971) Powertech / PTI (TWSE: 6239) Shinko Electric (TYO: 6967) Fabrinet < $FN > Connector, Ferrule: Senko Advanced Components (Private) Sumitomo Electric (TYO: 5802) US Conec (Private) T&S Communications (SZSE: 300570) Molex (Private) Browave (TWO: 3163) Fiber: Corning < $GLW > Sumitomo Electric (TYO: 5802) Nittobo / Nitto Boseki (TYO: 3110) E/O Testing: Keysight < $KEYS > Teradyne < $TER > FormFactor < $FORM > Chroma ATE (TWSE: 2360) Multilane (Private) Switch, System: NVIDIA < $NVDA > Broadcom < $AVGO > Marvell < $MRVL > Google < $GOOGL> EDA: Synopsys < $SNPS > Cadence < $CDNS > Ansys < $ANSS > Confused by some of names of the list, they might have conflated a few names like Innolight with laser source like $MTSI, Sumitomo, $SIVE, Luxnet, with the actual end module (unless there's something that's not public material or I missed)? But just for people interested in the landscape, this is a good high-level overview.

There’s clearly some market outperformers despite index’s and mega caps from $META / $MSFT crashing. This probably signals institutions rotation or an extremely strong up and coming sector. The obvious one is into CPO/ELS supply chains. My personal picks were: $TSEM / Win Semi- TSM of photonics $AAOI / $SIVE / $COHR / $LITE- Light Sources $SOI / $AXTI - Substrates $IQE - Epiwafers But of course there are larger names out there like $MRVL, Sumitomo, $AVGO.

I'm still long on markets (now 85% long, now 15% cash/hedges). Even during wartime, I expect many names from $AAOI to $LITE to outperform. However... The World is largely interconnected now. The current administration might not realize the severity/fragility of upstream supply chains. They might look at $AAPL "Made in America". or $TSLA "Made in America" but if you look at the source for Tesla Humanoids: -> It's in China. Actuator materials stem from Russia feedstock. Materials come from partners in Canada. -> For Starlink, massive amount of supply chains stem from Win Semi Taiwan to companies in Korea. For where the funding from OpenAI, private equities, megacap, and others come from: -> Large part of it comes from UAE, Middle East, and others (that might need to pull out liquidity) as their oil fields get blown up. Extended disruptions (US ground invasion) for spanning multiple months, is very bearish. I was initially expecting the "Shock and Awe" and US to claim victory and for short term War shock to be bought back. But I would not encourage US to head toward a drawn out War. This especially is not good for Asian partners (SK, Japan) or our allies in Europe either. The main beneficiaries of War are: #1: Israel #2: Russia The rest of the World, including the US, are getting dragged down from War. It looks like "Oil/Energy prices going up is good for US": But it takes down a lot of supply chains that the hyperscalers from $NVDA to even $AAPL relies on.

I think I nailed the institutional bottleneck rotation. -> Caught the tail end of memory name rise with $SNDK, Samsung, SK Hynix, $MU -> Frontran institutions with photonics with names like $AAOI, $AXTI $LITE, $COHR. -> Doing it again now by adding heavily toward SiPh, ELS, and CPO: $SIVE, $TSEM, $SOI, $AEHR, Win Semi, and others. Of course if you want to play it safe: $MRVL (captive), $AVGO (captive), $TSM, and $NOK all do it as well, but they're larger players. And getting direct exposure to the next supercycle is ideal. I still think there's tons of room to grow for memory to EML optical transceivers, but the largest boom is at the start/inflection point of a new architectural cycle. Macro messing up some trades aside, expecting capital rotation soon toward CPO / ELS supply chains. TLDR from analyst note: The AI infrastructure investment supercycle follows a strict "bottleneck resolution" sequence: Compute/GPUs (2023) -> Memory/HBM (2024) -> Interconnect/Networking (2025+). Translation: "We judge that the third investment cycle of the AI value chain has officially begun. Following GPUs (2023) and HBM (2024), post-2025, optical interconnects will become the fastest-growing core segment. 2027–2028 will be a critical inflection point where CPO commercialization. 1.6T standardization, and Scale-Up optical transitions align, structurally expanding the TAM of related industries" Some takeaways: 1. CPO (Co-Packaged Optics) is moving from the lab to commercial mass production 2. 2027-2028 is the major structural inflection point (good idea to frontrun this now in 2026 from testing with $AEHR to ELS with $SIVE or packaging with $POET). 3. The Total Addressable Market (TAM) for optical components, materials, and testing equipment is expected to structurally expand 3x to 5x (I think this is sandbagging a bit).

CPO Landscape Mirae Analyst Note: Scale-Across: CPO ASIC: $AVGO, $MRVL Optical Transceiver: $COHR, $LITE, Innolight DSP/PAM4: $AVGO, $MRVL Coherent DCI: $CIEN, $NOK OCS Equipment: iPronics, Polatis Optical Cable / Fiber: $GLW, Prysmian, Furukawa HCF: $LITE, OFS DCI Coherent: Ciena, Nokia, Huawei Optical Amplifier: $LITE, $COHR OCS Gateway: KDDI Scale-Up: SiPh Foundry: imec, $GFS, $TSM SiPh Modulator: $NVDA (in-house MRM), $INTC ELS: NTT, Furukawa, $LITE, $COHR THz Interconnect: R&D Stage? CPO Test: "Expanding entry of new players" Micro Lens / Optical Systems: "Expanding entry of new players" TLDR: Scale Up CPO is coming next. Think the analyst note missed a bunch of upstream names and conflated ELS with light source. But it's helpful to see who they think the leading players are as a very high-level view.

Sure, low cash balance, legacy drag from parent company, further dilution along the way. Ayar multi sourcing and leaning more heavily toward $LITE. Maybe qualification issues with Win. CPO roadmap delays. I do think any downside risk is negated by how valuable being one of the only independent cw laser suppliers in the world. So that itself is really valuable. If it ever drops enough a hedge fund or company like Broadcom or Marvell can just buy it out for pennies and either vertically integrate upstream or chokepoint out competitors.

Glad it’s helpful. When I say $SIVE reminds me of $LITE, this is kinda what I’m thinking about in the back of my mind. I also saw people try to model finite or steady compounding TAM (like $AXTI) rather than expansion or bottleneck game theory, which is the wrong approach for these niche supply chain chokepoints

We’ve just seen $LITE pull off this exact same playbook and go up 3600%+... You don’t need to reinvent the wheel. I actually think management is competent and they’ve gone down the right path with the resources they had (eg. Nondilutive grants, Win semi fabless, etc.) Then they attempted photonics spinoff in 2024-Feb 2025, but didn’t work because that was before photonics had a super cycle. But I think the recent attention may have helped them escape the valley of doom in small cap Sweden, lot of hedge funds are researching them now. So I think it’s with the shot of investing in $LITE at the start.

Can't $SIVE just pull a $LITE and TAM expansion down the ELS stack? I'm getting early stage $LITE flashbacks (Oclaro, NeoPhotonics, Cloud Light)... Here's my thesis/idea: on how Sivers can capture the ~$300-$400 ELS (from $50-100 arrays) and become a $10B+ company. How this plays out: -> Sivers is needs funding. -> Get NRE prepay or PIPE (eg. $AXTI/Northland) -> Say "Hey, $AVGO and $LITE are going to choke your custom AI cluster margins". ----> get $META / $AMZN / $MSFT capital injection for multi-source supply for next ASIC clusters cause they're scared. Esp. with $NVDA funding $4B to securing supply from $LITE and $COHR... then PTSD from the current EML capacity bottleneck. It's easier than people think. -> US spinoff of photonics arm (markets don't like investing in legacy companies). - - - - - > This will likely work in 2026, bc CPO/photonics is hot, now and not like 2024-early 2025. -> Raise enough to automate wafer probers and fund the module NPI. -> Fab-lite test model: develop probe cards and test inhouse, but push capex to OSATs. -> Buy SiPh packaging IP (or just continue JDM with O-Net and $POET) -> Keep their Glasgow InP fab for in-house testing for iteration/raw epitaxial. -> Outsource lithography, etching, etc. stuff to Win Semi + others (don't do capex heavy things yourself) -> Then just $SIVE can just hand tested lasers and packaging IP to $FN And Poof. You have a independent, mass producible, high margin, ELS module as ELSFP becomes standard. Then they can do other stuff like buying DSP designs and start consolidating the tech stack. Instead of cheap $10 laser dies x 6 for a $50-$100 laser array, you have $400 hot swappable modules. Basically their starting point is owning one of the chokepoints moat in photonics on the laser level... Then they can go downstream like what $LITE did with EML and optical transceivers. TLDR: Sivers ( $SIVE ) holds a rare, independent chokepoint in InP lasers at the exact moment the world is transitioning to CPO. There's only a few independent companies in the world that can do this like $SIVE (eg. Sumitomo, $LITE, $COHR). But of course they need the funding to achieve TAM expansion and the right vision.

@ajouannic You can replace $MU / $SNDK with Sk Hynix. Or replace $COHR with $LITE. I'm just saying my personal preferences in what I expect to outperform.

Faster compounds: $AAOI - 10x revenue ramp from optical transcivers h2 2027 $NBIS - 10x revenue ramp Q4 2026 $ARM - 5x revenue growth from their new AI CPU $MRVL - 2-3x revenue growth from $MSFT Maia Ramp. $AVGO - Long hyperscaler ASIC $LITE - Long OCS / Google TPU Win Semi - Foundry exposure to frontier industries $TSEM - Long photonics, backlogged SK Hynix - Memory exposure, extreme operating income ramp With some barbell exposure away from Hyperscaler capex aside from Amazon: $VNP - Long term rare earths for Western Supply chains $NEO (TCX) - Robotics Supply chains $AMZN - Robotics/AI cutting opex $CRCL - Stablecoin long $RDDT - Ridiculously high profit $GLD - Safe Hedge $IBIT - Halving 2028 $CVX Calls - Oil Hedge And maybe long term (you know it's coming): $INTC / $AMKR- Made in America supply chains $SOI - Silicon Photonics / CPO substrates. $RKLB - Long term call on Space industry Then pick one or two small cap moonshots: $SIVE - CW Laser Chokepoints or $IQE for Landmark rerating on restructuring were my two favorites. There's others I've mentioned like $AEHR for testing or $VPG for Optimus. How I actively manage my own stuff from $AXTI and others is a lot different risk profile than what others should do. Going full port into high-beta in this macro environment is not the best idea.

@Jornka329996 @gude57856 $IREN is out there diluting $6B+ and nobody bats an eye. $SIVE could potentially dilute $15M-20M to scale up CW laser segments and start growing into the next $LITE? Risk reward profiles favor names like $SIVE for me.

Sure, I have a lot of respect for the Aschenbrenner, vast majority of his longs like $BE and $LITE are stellar. I haven't really seen a fund like Situational Awareness in awhile. That being said: strongly disagree with $CRWV and $IREN individually. If I'm playing devils advocate: $IREN has a lot of raw capacity. Last year I was long since everyone thought they could monetize that through asset-lite colo. But they chose heavily dilutive ATMs and GPUs to monetize that. They still can do colo and not tap into the ATM. I just thought that's very unlikely. $CRWV, $NVDA and US Gov might just keep it backstopped and lower downside risk/contagion. They've nailed software orchestration for high margins and have real backlog/revenue. Then they can always figure out a way to refinance. Macro in general just doesn't favor capex heavy companies right now.

My portfolio has drawdowns from Macro as well. YTD is now 527%. After the index crashed -7%. - $AAOI “crashed” from $30 -> $100 -> $96… - $LITE “crashed” from $330-> $800 -> $702… - $AXTI “crashed” from $15 -> $70 -> $60… I’m not underestimating the War in Iran. This has serious consequences to liquidity/energy, so I’ve winded down margin. But if a company is going from $134m quarterly revenue to projected $1.54B a quarter from Made in America optical transceiver ramps... or if the tiny $3.6B company owns the materials supply chain for the hyperscaler photonics buildout... or a tiny laser supplier at $290m in $SIVE feeds to $MRVL CPO programs or Jabil transcivers... or a optical giant like $LITE is sold out of EML capacity until 2028... or a small European company in $SOI provides all the substrates required for silicon photonics / CPO. or a small European company in $IQE has latent reactor capacity multiple times what their valued at… or a memory company like SK Hynix is projected to make more than what their current market cap is in 3 years… There’s going to be tons of volatility on the way up, as markets realize their importance to supply chains But if you can’t bypass them to scale AI. Or they’re designed into the supply chains of $AMZN or $MSFT. Maybe they tend to outperform the market?

You cant spell Winner without Win. Because of that: I’m bullish on $SIVE supply chain. $SIVE -> WIN (TPE:3105) -> Ayar SuperNova -> $JBL -> Hyperscalers, as one flow. If you compare to $LITE and others that’s also in the same CPO CW WDM space. There’s a reason why: -> $POET / $MRVL Celestial. -> Ayar / $JBL and O-Net use $SIVE. It’s designed in as the light source for the next-gen photonics architecture for hyperscalers. At a ~$300M valuation. And I do think WDM DFB arrays are the superior architecture for scale up. And are incredibly hard to develop. It's not a zero-sum architectural game and will likely be split with how you handle scale out with single emitters like $LITE and $COHR. As well as captive suppliers like $MRVL and how they design their architectures. But if you look at the MC difference (~$300m with $SIVE, $55B with $LITE). Anyone can see how clear how valuable the $330M incoming disruptor in $SIVE is to the photonics space. And especially with the $4B foundry in Win Semi that captures fabless laser production from $SIVE, $AVGO, $MTSI and other players at scale. It’s highly asymmetrical to long both the supply chain as exposure to where photonics and hyperscalers architecture are heading.

I am long Win Semi (3105.TWO) at $4.1B MC. I believe markets are sleeping on of the most important foundries in the world (aside from $TSM). IMO their strategic positioning exceeds far beyond $4B MC. They sit in almost every major chokepoints: -> In the SpaceX Starlink LEO supply chain. -> As $AVGO, $LITE, $MTSI, $SIVE InP foundries for optical transceivers -> then as the body/eyes of humanoids as the GaAs foundry for TOF lasers possibly mapping to Boston Dynamic Atlas -> With legacy from MediaTek / Qualcomm / $AAPL from their previous business. But Win appears to be bottom of the legacy drag (like with $SOI), with optical as one of their largest growth vectors. Then... Win has the largest TAM expansion/revenue acceleration out of almost any foundry: With: LEO, humanoids / CW laser, 800g, 1.6t, 3.2t optical transceiver massive ramp up over the next few years. Especially with Broadcom as their anchor client ( $AVGO owns ~5% of Win). $NVDA doesn't care who makes the lasers, whether it's $LITE or $COHR. They just care if there's enough. There's not enough. -> Demand for CW lasers will likely go parabolic. (they make the lasers that companies like $SIVE designs) -> Demand for LEO satellites (SpaceX Starlink) will likely go parabolic. -> Demand for humanoids will likely go parabolic. As, Win Semi sits as a semi-monopoly chokepoint in the three most frontier and fastest growing industries for photonics/AI, robotics/humanoids, and space. Especially with Optical TAM explosion: Win fwd earnings for 2027 roughly in ~35x range, I do think this is sandbagging it and forward multiples will end up dirt cheap. Win will largely benefit from TAM expansion and accelerated revenue growth. Of course: Win will win. So I am long Win.

This crash today is a good reason why it's good to stay invested. -> $AAOI is still up 233%? -> $IQE is still up ~100%? -> $SIVE is still up 100%+? -> $LITE is still up ~88%? -> $TSEM is up ~48%? -> $SOI is still up 36%? Even after today my $AXTI positions are still up ~680% after the drop today? Yes, red days look rough if something drops 13% or 20% and especially so if you're later to enter. But if you keep thinking it's going to: -> drop from $500m and sit out -> drop from $1b and sit out -> drop from $2b and sit out -> drop from $3b and sit out By the time it's $4B and there's finally a correction 15%, you missed out on the entire rise. People can say "hindsight bias, you're posting after it went up". No, I've posted these are the returns after my original thesis, and I'm just riding the wave up. I keep getting trolls like these in my comments sections, but hope it doesn't make others panic. Not everything moves in a green line up, same applies to other sectors and stocks if there’s no material change. Risk exists. And portfolio sizing is very important. But if you’re going to enter higher beta names in bottlenecks especially with a clear thesis in mind. Need to learn to embrace the volatility for your thesis to play out.

Photonics are not having a fun time. Laser Companies from: $LITE, $SIVE, $COHR, $MTSI, $AAOI all down. Substrate, Foundries, and Epiwafer from: $IQE, $AXTI, $SOI, $TSEM all down. Almost everything is red. From 6% on lower beta like Coherent all the way to to 22%. Good lesson to learn: Embrace the volatility and don't use leverage. If a name can go up 25% in a day, it can also drop 20% today. Macro-driven liquidity vacuums and stop losses cause pretty violent swings. However, if companies like $LITE and $COHR are sold out until 2028... Or if you know $SIVE is coming next for CW lasers at a ~$340M MC and $AXTI will become a bottleneck for substrates. Crashes like these from Macro are often a way to exchange hands for those who can reposition long.

Lot of uninvited speculation about $P4O. It's a pure-play glass substrate supplier, likely to $LITE OCS supply chains. And they supply to Samsung with potential mapping to $COHR. I like to analyze hyperscaler upstream supply chains. I don't control how the algos/markets react to anything I mention, and I certainly don't trade volatility.

So if you care about the second optical transicever bottleneck outside of EML/CW Lasers: - $SANM (US) - $TTMI (US) - WUS Printed Circuit (TPE: 2316) - Unimicron (TPE: 3037) - Zhen Ding Tech (TPE: 4958) - Gold Circuit Electronics (TPE: 2368) Were winners for the optical transceiver PCB bottleneck. There's some downstream players like FIC Global that benefits, not so much as a Fab but assembly. Others like Unimicron are likely too large with other segments like ABF substrates to feel much of a difference. US plays are more-so from reshoring to US supply chains, even though Chinese and Taiwanese players were main beneficaries. $AVGO quote: "Both Taiwanese and Chinese PCB suppliers are facing capacity limits, contributing to the delays, Ramachandran said, without naming the suppliers." I have no open long positions in any of these right now. I could be wrong, but I felt laser chokepoints ( $LITE, $SIVE, $MTSI, $COHR, Sumitomo) in optical supply chains to be much more compelling for structural re-rating.

$SIVE at ~$400m MC is a name I genuinely believe... Institutions missed as the upstream laser chokepoint for hyperscalers. When you look at $TSEM following my thesis, the stock went up 70% to a $21B+ MC. Retail flows do not send NASDAQ stocks up $10B+. Information discovery and synthesis does. Especially when institutions validate it, and follow along. $SIVE was majority owned by Sweden retail investors, with **almost 0 institutional investors**. Now that information is distributed regarding the Upstream CW laser supplier for $MRVL, Ayar, Jabil, O-Net. And with $AVGO + other comments recently stating lasers were a clear bottleneck for supply chains: I strongly think that institutions are trying to accumulate off Swedish retail hands through Iceberg orders, vwap algos, or any other methods to gain exposure to the upcoming CW laser bottleneck. Again, the closest comparison to $SIVE are: $MTSI and $LITE, both at $18B and $55B MCs. Sivers trades at ~$400m MC. With architectural paradigm shifts in photonic supply chains: I think retail has a rare opportunity to frontrun institutions with $SIVE and have heavy exposure to the upcoming CW/EML laser bottleneck.

I’m curious… With $AXTI, $IQE, or $SIVE. And the many other photonics winners I’ve longed like $LITE that returned 100-1000% over the past few months. When is it time for the salty folks out there to admit… That my thesis are just right after all. Instead of downplaying it? $20B+ companies like $TSEM don’t just move up 70% in 2 weeks, unless institutions validated the thesis and found it compelling. Same with $AXTI, it wouldn’t have ran from $450M MC to $3.85B MC unless institutions found it compelling. I just spot these before others do, and post information synthesis/discovery. In these cases, retail has clearly frontrun institutions and made life changing returns. If the thesis were wrong, institutions can take the other end of the trade. Which they don’t. Everyone on X keeps asking for the next 1000%. And when there’s someone out there on X that posts multiple (for free) ideas. Posts a clear directional trade before the price even moved. -> then they do ~10x like $AXTI: They’re met with slander instead? Ever stop to think… maybe the thesis/idea was right after all?

So just checked out the comments... $P4O does look like a potential upstream $LITE supplier at a $34M MC. How it likely maps: -> Plan Optik $P4O (Glass Wafers) -> Teledyne $TDY or Silek (Mem Foundries) -> $LITE (OCS Switches) -> $GOOGL (TPUs) However, $LITE likely dual sources with Corning ( $GLW ) on the glass wafer level. P4O is a known supplier to Infineon, Samsung, and others, so not exactly a random company. €3.35 million vs. 35.52M MC is very healthy balance sheet. That being said: -> That doesn't exactly mean this translates to material revenue boosts unless they start price hike (given glass wafers are likely a very small part of $LITE OCS BOM). I do personally own shares, after reading this. Since $LITE OCS potential supply chain chokepoints is strategically valuable. Maybe not so much so as financially valuable. But their core thesis that Plan Optik's Glass Flow and MDF finishing are effectively irreplaceable for OCS packaging checks out. Of course, hyperscaler supply chains are heavily guarded, so no way to know 100%. All credit goes to follower comments. But TLDR: Supply Chain Mapping -> $P4O -> Foundries -> $LITE -> $GOOGL is very likely from their analysis. As for being a chokepoint in $LITE OCS supply chain... dunno if it translates materially. Again, not recommending this at all. Just thought the $LITE OCS supply chain mapping like this very interesting, and that it would be a waste of the follower kinda posted all this work into the void.

$SIVE is literally one of the only pure play public exposure to the (CW/EML) optical laser bottlenecks in the world. $LITE - $55B+ $COHR - $53B+ $MTSI - $17.8B+ $AAOI - $8.8B $SIVE- $400M You basically almost never see this... Genuinely shocked there's a small cap company out there like Sivers... That already is a qualified supplier to hyperscaler supply chains through Jabil, Marvel Celestial, O-Net, Ayar and others. This is one of the largest structural gaps in the market I've seen. I expect the market to keep repricing this every day like $AXTI as more institutions begin to realize this.

Every industry leader... Especially $AVGO (Physical Layer Products division) in this statement today. Cites Lasers as a bottleneck for semiconductors. If you aren't long... -> CW Lasers: $SIVE | $MTSI -> EML Lasers: $COHR | $LITE -> or their foundries in $TSEM/Win Semi Maybe it's time to wake up? Broadcom Ramachandran: "Even though there are multiple suppliers in the industry today... there is definitely a supply constraint in the laser space,”

If you're new to $AAOI: It looks scary entering positions near ATH at $109 after a 175% YTD increase. However, this looks like the photonics equivalent of $SNDK. And it so happens the center of the optical transceiver supercycle... At a $8.2B valuation we can look at projections: (est. Capacity * ASP Projections) Q2 2026: ~$312.1M Q4 2026: ~$1.41B Q2-2027: ~$1.53B Q4-2027: ~$1.97B If $AAOI ends up leapfrogging the $55B $LITE in revenue... $8B MC looks a little absurd for revenue growth off 30-40% margins… Re-rating potential is enormous. Worst case scenario if they fail internal laser fab and buys off $COHR. Is it ends up a Made in America Innolight / Eoptolink (Both $66B-$90B+ Chinese companies)? The optionality of making the entire supply chain in America is understated. $AAOI is one of my few high conviction longs aside from $SIVE and $LITE if they can deliver on projections.

So my 10x moonshot $AXTI ended up landing on the moon. If you felt like you missed the rocket: -> $SIVE is my personal favorite next 10x AXT moonshot at today's prices. -> $AAOI already up 4x since I've mentioned it, but I still think it can 4x again from these levels. If you want to play a bit safer: -> $VNP is the Western $AXTI -> $SOI is the $AXTI for silicon photonics/CPO, but it hasn't really ramped up yet. -> $IQE is more binary based on restructuring. -> $TSEM, $LITE, $COHR are the steadier compounders. I haven’t mentioned $VNP (5N Plus) much yet but it’s genuinely one of the most important companies in Western supply chains as the counterbalance to $AXTI. Basically it supplies: indium, germanium, gallium, tellurium, bismuth. Solar cells for LEO. Substrate feedstock for photonics. There's always more opportunities in the market!

There's the Space Satellite MegaCycle: -> Triggered by $PL. With $BKSY / $SATL / $SPIR and others following. Then there's the Photonics SuperCycle: -> Triggered by $LITE and $COHR. With $AAOI / $TSEM / $MTSI / $SIVE / $IQE / $SOI and others following. One is hype over applications from Space. The other is hype over extreme revenue and earnings growth from AI. The latter tends to be more defensible.

I keep getting asked: What's the PT of $SIVE? It's a $320m MC company, how far can it run? It’s a critical CW laser company, the next chokepoint in photonics. Closest comparison is $MTSI is $17 Billion. Then $LITE at $51.97 Billion. I think it should trade at $2-3B, today. Yet it’s $320 million. The sheer valuation gap points to massive upside when it scales.

$SIVE is starting to play out like my $AXTI thesis round 10? Up triple digits now. Really not sure how markets missed this one tbh? -> Laser supplier to Jabil… for 1.6T pluggable transceivers in the current supercycle. -> Laser supplier to Ayar / $MRVL celestial for CPO, in the upcoming supercycle. Literally all your laser suppliers from $MTSI to $LITE are $17-45B companies. $SIVE? Now only at ~$310M. High conviction long.

< $SIVE | $SIVEF > at a ~$250M valuation looks like one of the most severe structural mispricing in the optical semi market. $LITE and $COHR, have $45B+ valuations today: Largely because of their control over EMLs and VCSELs that they ship to -> InnoLight and Eoptolink. For current pluggable transceiver supercycles. I will keep hammering this home until markets understand: Sivers has replicated this exact, highly lucrative merchant-supplier model for the next paradigm: -> CPO and ELS. And also: -> Lasers that a massive manufacturer like Jabil is using for the current 1.6T upgrade cycle. Sivers saw architectures shifting away from EML and became the pure play supplier for CW. Current Cycle (Pluggables): LITE/COHR supply EML -> InnoLight/Eoptolink build modules -> $GOOGL, $META, $MSFT, $AMZN buy them. Next Cycle (CPO / ELS): Sivers supplies CW DFB -> $POET, Ayar Labs -> flows to hyperscalers like $AMZN, $META, $MSFT and others. However, instead of building up mega fabs with yield/capacity ramp risk: They transitioned to an outsourced, fabless model for high-volume CW Lasers with Win Semi and effectively de-risked scaling. So why does it have a $250M valuation during the photonics supercycle? My opinion: 1. Nobody knows about it yet. 2. Many fund mandates prevents them from buying small caps in Sweden However, when you start looking at obscure upstream names in hyperscaler light supply chain: At the top for the light source sits $SIVE. A small $250M company among $MTSI, $LITE, $COHR, Sumitomo and the $10B-$40B+ incumbents. Again... A $250M company: Powers Jabil's 1.6T LRO optical transceivers modules. Jabil is massive. As well as Ayar, $POET, Enablence/ $ONET and many other names now (that are not disclosed) for diversification. $SIVE found their way to scale as the lightsource of hyperscaler supply chains for future photonic architectures. And looks incredibly undervalued, relative to forward TAM expansion and ramp.

My thoughts today on $SIVE, at a ~$250M MC: Sivers is the future likely CW + laser array light source powering hyperscalers from $AMZN, $META, and $MSFT. At ~$250m... From confirmed clients, est. mapping: 1. Jabil ( $JBL ) LRO Transceivers (Former SiPH $INTC) -> $AMZN, $META, and other Hyperscalers. 2. Ayar -> AIChip/GUC -> $AMZN and other hyperscalers. 3. Enablence -> O-Net -> Asian Hyperscalers 4. And other unconfirmed customers. People have been asking me endless questions about today's volatility: If a stock can go up 20% it can do up 20% too. $AXTI had those +30%, -30% movements all the time (eg. Earnings -30% to $20, now at $60). And like AXT as you've seen, what matters is it has the likely potential to outperform long term. That's why it's important to develop your own conviction before entering any trade, so you don't need to ask me questions every day if you take it yourself. I personally have a long position and I do think Sivers has the potential to be a $5B+ company with Win qualification. Especially amid some analysts post today telling people to take profits on $SIVE: - If you just look at $COHR, $LITE and other light source valuations today, they're $40B+. - $SIVE pre-revenue advanced packaging counterparties are all $1B-$4B+. - And we have $SIVE as the future light source for hyperscaler supply chains and Jabil transceivers: At ~$250M. Just my personal opinion, but it's better to anchor conviction to the marketcap ($250M) as the light source for hyperscaler supply chains, than price fluctuations... Especially when institutions (~14.1% owned) are able to to shake the tree of a majority owned stock to build a position. This is why I've shared my thoughts about $AXTI or $SIVE early since I think it's possible for retail investors to frontrun institutions for the up and coming chokepoints in AI supply chains. And why I've shared hyperscaler supply chain mapping for $SIVE so people can build their own conviction on future light-source growth.

$LITE Transcript from Conference Call: "The thing that keeps me up at night most is: Substrates. Less so sort of reactors and getting the right tools into the fab, although it’s not a zero challenge." They basically went out and said $AXTI is the bottleneck for photonics. Especially if InP substrates keeps $LITE's CEO up at night. I've been mentioning it for the past few months, if AXT they control the substrate supply, they have a lot of pricing power over $LITE to $COHR and America's AI buildout. I've seen a ton of misinterpretation on X saying: "Seven-year agreement with Sumitomo". But they literally said there was supply tightness Today. And the agreement doesn't mean there will be enough supply for 7 years, especially when China export controls start to kick in on upstream feedstock/materials required by Japanese supply chains to make then. This is before Photonics has even started to ramp up. My $AXTI bottleneck thesis is playing out real time and we got new confirmation from $LITE that InP substrates is a bottleneck.

The Serenity Silicon Photonics / CPO ETF. YTD Returns of Each Index Stock: $IQE: +282.5% $AXTI: +246.6% Landmark: 167.54% $AAOI: +157.37% $SIVE: +113.08% $SOI: +103.54% $LITE: +100.27% $LWLG: +92.35% $VIAV: +88.71% $AIXA: +73.92% $AEHR: +70.4% $CIEN: +67.67% $FORM: +60.67% $FOCI: +60.44% $CAMT: +49.13% $GLW: +46.77% $SMHN: +45.94% Fujikura: +43.89% $COHR: +41.81% $KEYS: +40.48% $TSEM: +36.42% $ASX: +29.89% $MTSI: +28.34% $NOK: +27.5% Shin-Etsu: +27.33% $ONTO: +26.28% $BESI: +24.71% $UMC: +18.11% $INTC: +17.27% $OXINF: 15.03% $FN: +12.79% Eoptolink: +11.82% $TSM: +6.00% $HIMX: +5.39% $SMTC: +4.11% Sumitomo: +3.67% $CSCO: +3.25% Innolight: +.33% $MRVL: +.16% $APH: -6.48% $MXL: -7.62% $AVGO: -7.99% $POET: -12.99% $TEL: -14.93% This is retrospectively, but as you've known I've been in a lot of the winners for awhile (eg. Top 6/7 like $AXTI or $LITE aside from Landmark). However, if you were curious if you invested in the photonics trend as a whole at the start of the year. The equal weighted return? 50.033% I expect the Photonic Supercycle to last over the next several years, and many of these names to be large beneficaries going forward. Especially as CPO is used to scale AI deployments. Photonics is the new architectural paradigm for AI.

$TSEM and the Photonics Supercycle… Doesn’t like they’re bothered with Iran or Silver and Gold crashing? Almost every name from $AAOI, $COHR, $SIVE, to $LITE is green. This is what happens when capacity is sold out for the next few years or it’s in the center of scaling the AI buildout. Better to stay long rather than get distracted by macro.

$SIVE <> $SIVEF is now up 165% this week. Valuation? ~$300M MC. However; either I’m dumb or Sivers is one of the best opportunities in photonics today. You get the laser supplier for Jabil, Ayar, Poet ( $MRVL Celestial ), O-Net, and others: That end up in $GOOGL, $MSFT, $AMZN, $META AI datacenters. At ~$300M. The EML laser suppliers today from $LITE to $COHR for reference are $45B+ This is one of the most undiscovered yet critical bottlenecks for future upstream photonics supply chains. That markets have only starting to price in today.

Sivers < $SIVE / $SIVEF > powering Jabil ($27B MC) < $JBL > 1.6T LRO transcivers. As the laser light source. Is by far the biggest news from $NVDA GTC for Sivers ($280M MC) today... in history. Jabil brings in about $30B+ revenue from end users like $AMZN, $GOOGL, and $META. As well as OEMs like $NVDA, Arista, $AVGO, and Cisco. Especially after acquiring $INTC SiPH optical transceiver business, they're Tier 1 in the space. Sivers powering Jabil as the CW DFB laser source for Silicon Photonics and CPO and hyperscaler supply chains: At a $280M MC is incredible, and they're one of the most unknown yet highest potential company I've seen in the photonics sector so far. And the news from $NVDA GTC just cemented this thesis further. I think they genuinely have a shot at becoming the next $LITE.

Sivers < $SIVE / $SIVEF >to power Jabil ( $JBL ) next-generation optical transceivers. The fact Sivers is named as the power source for Jabil's flagship 1.6T module… is probably the biggest news to date? This is thesis validation that Sivers is the next $LITE as the light source for CPO/Silicon Photonics. Source: Semicap, $NVDA GTC.

Year to Date return from Jan to March: +564.36%. I’m speed running last year’s 600%+ returns by finding undiscovered AI bottlenecks. And picking the winners. - 500%+ unrealized gains on $AXTI. - $AAOI 3x’d in 3M or $IQE 2x in 1M. - $LITE close to 100%+. And I expect large capital rotation into silicon photonics + CPO names: Like $SOI, $AEHR, or $SIVE this year. (They’re up close to ~70-100%, but have a long way to go) Then, this is compounded by misc longs, such as $CRCL that increased 148% in 1 month. $NBIS that close to doubled from $70 back to $120. $EWY IV trade is up 50-70% and names like $XLU are up 50%+. My biggest loser YTD is $RDDT since my cost average was $148. Some of the misc picks like $INFQ, $VPG, $AVAV, $LPTH are not doing as well. But as I’ve mentioned aside from Reddit (which I had high concentration in), a lot of my other picks I’m not as familiar with, I have less concentration in: But all my higher conviction picks like $TSEM have been strongly compounded recently. And what matters is I get more things right than wrong, especially in my higher concentration names. Majority of my YTD returns are actually unrealized since I don’t exit my longs, unless there’s material changes: But I did realize a lot of gains at the beginning of the year post Venezuela conflict, as I identified some winners like Gold Reserve that doubled in a day. Sadly I did sell some Asian names like Nittobo or Macronix that both went up 100-200%+ to rotate capital around the time of the Iran conflict… those ended up going a lot higher afterwards. I swing trade a lot of misc names like in fintech or write CSP on the side. Hence why I’m able to compound to 500%+. While individual names are only up 100-200% (just keep doubling + rotating). But if you want to ride the next trend: Most obvious one is Photonics Supercycle if you just look at $AAOI earnings call or $LITE Nvidia GTC call for next few years. And the current one is the Memory Supercycle if you just look at $SNDK returns. And as you’ve seen after my original $AXTI thesis or now Soitec: These names keep going in a vertical line up, as everyone suddenly now realizes its importance to the next paradigm shift for AI. My strategy is identifying structural bottlenecks in the AI supply chains before the market discovers them.

Sivers is up another 29% to a $282M marketcap today. I genuinely think $SIVE could be the next $LITE. As they’re positioned as the light source for the next generation of hyperscaler supply chains. When scale up-scale out architectures transition to CPO & Silicon photonics. For the start of next Photonics Supercycle. The companies that buy and package their laser arrays/cw dfb lasers from $POET to Ayar? Are worth ~$1B-$4B+ (not including o-net or undisclosed). With current pluggable transceiver cycles: Laser suppliers typically command higher valuation premiums than their packaging counterparties that buy the light source. So, I do think $SIVE is largely undiscovered by markets and far from being priced in.

This thesis post aged well with $LITE. I feel like every photonics pick I make just keeps doubling in short time periods. https://t.co/vOOWFZRgsW

Well that was a fast 100%+ return with $IQE in 1 month. Turns out when you map it to $LITE and the hyperscaler supply chain at the epiwafer level… Markets start pricing it in with the new $LITE projections… https://t.co/TA3xbSGfbX

$AAOI looks very undervalued at $6.49B. If we model ASP and their newest capacity projections today: Revenue from Capacity: Q2 2026: ~$312.1M Q4 2026: ~$1.41B Q2-2027: ~$1.53B Q4-2027: ~$1.97B This is absurd ramp (off ~34-40% est. gross margins). ASP modeled off (LightCounting, Dell'Oro Group & Yole, pricing for ELSFP modules is the most speculative). And some sell-side models (from firms like Raymond James, B. Riley, Northland Capital, and Goldman Sachs). Exact contract pricing for massive volume orders is not known, so this is speculative. But the Q2 volume * ASP estimates actually align with their $378M/month target Q2-2027. Again, you might be wondering? This is capacity, doesn't translate into revenue right? Hyperscalers from $AMZN to $MSFT are buying any capacity any of these companies from $LITE to $COHR can make, years out. This includes $AAOI from their former earnings call.

$SIVE is the upstream laser supplier for CPO and Silicon Photonics. They're the likely $COHR / $LITE type future light source for: - $AMZN Trainium Clusters - $MSFT Maia Clusters and possibly other hyperscalers like $META MTAI and $GOOGL TPU clusters. At a ~$200M MC. Relational Mapping (speculative): $SIVE (light source) -> $POET (optical interposers) -> $MRVL (Likely Celestial Captive) -> $MSFT Maia + $AMZN Trainium. $SIVE (light source) -> Ayar -> AiChip -> $AMZN Inferentia/Trainium $SIVE (light source) -> Enablence -> O-Net -> ? Asia Hyperscalers _ Ongoing: $SIVE (light source) -> Ayar -> GUC -> ? (Google $TPU) $SIVE (light source) -> Ayar (TeraPHY/SuperNova)-> Wiwynn (captive CPO) -> ? ( $MSFT, $META historically Wiwynn's largest clients). Because of captive models like $MRVL Celestial, they get a free ride. However, they do compete multi-source ELS against Lumentum, Coherent, and $MTSI with Ayar and win anyway in merchant models. But they win either way. For high-volume production ramp up, a large part of it depends on the ongoing Win semi qualification, but this will likely be a large indicator. Again supply chain BOM is extremely confidential. $AMZN will never tell anyone "Hey, we use $SIVE ". But if you put 1+1+1+1+1 together, you can piece together the likely suppliers. Most people see "Poet Starlight" uses $SIVE. Or Ayar uses $SIVE. But don't map all the multi-hop relations to see where they end up. I do think $SIVE is an extremely undiscovered opportunity as the next possible mini $LITE for Silicon Photonics at $200m MC. As they're the likely upstream laser supplier for hyperscaler supply chains for future CPO/Silicon Photonics scale up with cw dfb lasers and scale out with laser arrays.

The upcoming CPO / Silicon Photonics Bottleneck Cheat Sheet: $SIVE, Sumitomo, $LITE, $COHR, $AVGO, $MTSI, $AAOI - Light Source (CW DFB Lasers) $TSEM, $GFS, $UMC, $TSM, $INTC - SiPh foundry $NOK, $CIEN, $CSCO, $COHR - DCO $HIMX, FOCI (3363.TWO) - Micro-lens + Fiber Arrays $POET - Optical Interposers $SOI, $AXTI, Shin-Etsu - Substrates $FN, $ASX, Innolight, Eoptolink - Optical Packaging and Assembly $MTSI, $SMTC, $MRVL, $MXL - Analog/Mixed-Signal ICs $LWLG - Speculative Modulator Materials. $GLW, $APH, $TEL, $FIT, Fujikura - Connectors and Fibers $FORM, $KEYS, $VIAV, $AEHR- Test & Measurement $BESI, $SMHN, $ONTO, $CAMT - Advanced Packaging & Hybrid Bonding Many are private companies from Lightmatter, Ayar, Ranovus and others. Now... Everyone is asking... How do you profit? If you look at the forecast for CPO TAM, it's a straight line up, and next year is inflection point for CPO mass deployment. The alpha is capturing the rotation: From the current EML bottlenecks ( $LITE, $COHR type) to SiPh / CW DFB architectural winners for CPO. Highest upside potential are the ones that aren't included in current cycles. But that are in the next. Companies like $SOI, $SIVE, or $AEHR are perfect examples. Ride the current pluggable bottleneck like $AAOI. But the alpha is frontrunning institutions with the next CPO bottleneck. The capital rotation is inevitable.

Photonics is the next bottleneck after memory. If you're not convinced yet? $LITE CEO went out and said: "We're sold out really until the end of 2027. We see no end in sight." This is eerily similar to $INTC CEO saying "No Relief" on Memory Shortage Until 2028. But instead... Photonics has only started to ramp up as the new architectural paradigm of AI. The current EML laser + optical transceiver bottleneck cannot be understated. Hyperscalers are buying any EML capacity or optical transceiver, $AAOI, $LITE, $COHR, and downstream providers can make. The CEO also reiterated: "We are completely sold out." The company [ $LITE ] is "way, way under-shipping" what customers want. "Lumentum says it is under shipping demand by roughly 25% to 30%, and that all capacity is fully allocated under long-term agreements through calendar 2027" If the photonics sector is completely sold out for the next two years with no end in sight. Before there's been any price hiking. And before growth engines like CPO have even started to ramp up. There's probably something the markets haven't priced in yet.

Just in: $SIVE announces major partnership with O-Net and Enablence for CPO. Sivers will be the laser array supplier for CPO. This is thesis validation in effect as $SIVE becomes InP CW DFB supplier for silicon photonics. In simpler terms, this is the $LITE -> $FN relationship for current optical bottlenecks. And mirrors the existing $POET -> $MRVL Celestial CPO supply chain, but in Asia. Enablence makes the "Star Coupler", similar to $POET interposers. O-Net is a massive assembler, that packages them for the finished module. O-Net in HK is a supplier to companies like Huawei, ZTE, Ciena, Nokia, Fujitsu, and more.

Normally don’t respond to trolls, but the hypocrisy on this platform is pretty impressive. Random X retail: “Why didn’t you tell me about $LITE before it went up 1000% already?” Me: “Posts my thesis about the next possible $LITE at the very beginning, without paywalls.” X retail: 😡, “I’m going to pay $400 for a paywall to long $ADBE and short $PLTR instead”. Especially after my $AXTI thesis that already went from $12->$50 in 3 months... I distribute all my thought processes for free. And markets can price in any alpha immediately or however they want. (I get things wrong as well, especially with names like $ETOR that crashed from $65 to $33). However, instead of the original model where analysts sell a thesis for $2000+ to other hedge funds to slowly accumulate. Then retail buys at $40 billion+ as seen with $LITE. My account’s been growing because I’m one of the few analysts to break that model. And I distribute novel information synthesis for free to everyone. Stocks are a positive sum game where everyone benefits if a thesis is directionally correct.

$SIVE is now up +73.78% today ($231M MC). As markets price in information synthesis of the next potential $LITE of photonics. If I had to explain the difference: One laser source in Lumentum primarily benefits from current optical bottlenecks. The other in $SIVE is for the upcoming CPO/Silicon Photonic bottleneck. Lumentum is largely benefiting right now from $NVDA and hyperscalers securing capacity of EML lasers for current pluggable optical transceivers cycles. As seen with the current EML bottleneck, hyperscalers are buying out any 800G/1.6T transceiver + upstream capacity from: - $AAOI (in-house) - $COHR, $LITE (EML lasers + design) -> $FN (assembly) - $COHR, $LITE (EML lasers) -> Innolight / Eoptolink What's next? Silicon Photonics and Co-Packaged Optics. The architectural shift to CPO requires massive arrays of high-power CW DFB lasers. And this would likely trigger a complete, sudden paradigm shift in volume demand. $SIVE benefits from InP CW DFB lasers for SiPh and CPO: The up and coming companies like: $AYAR, $POET source $SIVE lasers, but primarily do advanced packaging. Then they feed up to larger companies like $MRVL Celestial (that buy $POET's interposers). However, if you go upstream, the light source is $SIVE. CW DFB lasers are light engine ( $SIVE ); the silicon photonics package ( $POET and others) is how it gets transmitted. CPO scale is not there yet. But we know it's coming. And as seen with current optical transceiver cycles: - Light sources from $LITE and $COHR demand much higher valuations than companies like $FN that focus on advanced packaging. Markets have been focusing on $POET, but missed where they get the actual $LITE type light source for Starlight. The risks are present including facing multi-source competition with $LITE, $COHR, $AVGO, and others. So again, make sure to do your own research. But my argument against that: Sivers been early enough to tailor custom lasers to fit $POET, Ayar, and other specifications before they got popular (sort like the $POET to $MRVL Celestial analogy). There's volume risks as well: But the potential Win Semi qualification offsets that. Dilution risk to scale capacity, is always present with every early-stage company as well. I did my thesis on $LITE last year and still love the stock for Google TPU ramp/OCS. But this year, I'm focusing on: $SIVE, as my personal CW DFB laser exposure for the new photonics architectural shift. I’m sharing my own thoughts on capturing the rotation from the current EML cycle to the upcoming CW DFB/Silicon Photonics cycle.

$SIVE is now up 50%+, to a $190 million USD MC (~1.8B SEK -> USD). However, I genuinely believe this could be the next $LITE for silicon photonics/CPO. And I’m holding shares, as my personal bull case scenario is $10 billion+. As Sivers sits in the silicon photonics CW DFB laser bottleneck of the next gen photonic architectures spearheaded by $NVDA. This is compared to how $COHR / $LITE EML lasers are the current optical transceiver bottleneck. They’re already the laser supplier to Ayar, $POET (buys $SIVE lasers -> advanced packaging into optical interposers), and likely other silicon photonics/cpo players The Win semi ongoing qualification is one of the biggest bull cases, as this allows them to scale up capacity. Time will tell if this thesis turns out to be correct but I personally think this name is widely undiscovered. This is my own personal thesis and I’m not recommending anyone to tag along. But if you DYOR, maybe you’ll come to the same conclusion I did that $SIVE looks like the next $LITE.

I’m long $SIVE at $140M. I believe this is the next $LITE that markets and institutions missed. $SIVE makes InP CW DFB lasers. Closest comparison is $LITE in the current EML laser bottleneck. But instead of supplying to Innolight/Eoptolink for current optical transceivers cycles. They supply the lasers to $POET Starlight, Ayar SuperNova. And others for the future CPO/silicon photonics architectures spearheaded by $NVDA. Current valuations make 0 sense to me personally. 

 $POET is advanced packaging for $SIVE type lasers… But $POET commands worth 11x+ more than the company making the laser itself?

 It’s feels like valuing a more advanced $FN (~$20B) packaging at $400B when $LITE is valued at $40B. 

 So now at $130m:

- - You have a likely mini $LITE like laser supplier to Marvell Celestial + hyperscalers through $POET. 

 - Laser supplier to Ayar ( $NVDA, $INTC ), though they do multi source with $LITE, Sumitomo, $MTSI. And other potential up and coming suppliers potentially like Lightmatter that they’ve name dropped (eg. Q2 2023 earnings). This is unconfirmed but supply chain BOM is confidential. 

 On top, for revenue, they expected $453M "pipeline next few years”. 

And, they have capacity expansion through WIN: “Win Semi foundry qualification in progress for volume production from Laser designs from Sivers." 

Sivers feels the silicon photonics/CPO version of $LITE, with actual rapidly growing customers like Celestial through $POET, Ayar, with more to come. 

I wouldn’t have liked it last year, but just 3 weeks ago, they refinanced all their debt successfully to $12M convertible loan (10.85%) and a $5M term loan (12%), which cleans up debt.

 It’s $17m total, which feels like nothing to US markets when $AAOI is doing a $500m ATMs every other week. Best of all, this is their pure play inp laser segment for silicon/photonics + cpo. 

Their Lidar segment is ramping up and they have $53-138M projected revenue coming in. 

Downside risk: 
- execution (as always) 
- dilution to scale up capacity to compete with $LITE and others. - $LITE, $COHR competition on scale after $NVDA just gave them $4B
- CPO ramp gets delayed. 

I have no clue how, $LWLG, a pre-revenue science project with $TSEM, is valued at $1B+ MC. 

Or how $POET, is worth ~9-10x more than its laser supplier. 

 When $SIVE, the mini $LITE equivalent for CPO/Silicon photonics, is valued at $140M. I do believe this is largely undiscovered by institutions, since this is some random company in OMX Nordic Exchange (similar to micro $AXTI before I started posting about the inp substrate bottleneck). 

 But I do think it will get a lot of institutional attention as Celestial and Ayar scale up. Especially if $POET and $SIVE gets qualified with other customers. 

 If CPO completely replaces pluggable transceivers in the next generation of hyperscaler architectures. Sivers, with possible WIN Semi qualifcation and if they become the multi-source lasers for NVIDIA, Marvell, Intel, and Broadcom architectures, can be strongly rerated. Just as how $LITE did today going from $16 -> $622. This is just my personal thesis I'm sharing, DYOR/NFI. TLDR: InP Lasers are the current bottleneck in photonics as seen with $LITE valuations. 

 $SIVE looks like the mini $LITE for the upcoming CPO/Silicon Photonics ramp. 

I personally took long position in $SIVE, as I believe they’re a large beneficiary of the upcoming silicon photonic/CPO architectural changes by $NVDA (with GTC cataylst). 

 The upside here just way too compelling for me personally as the next possible $LITE.

Just a reflection on my accomplishments this year. Growing to 100K+ followers in the first three months of 2026: - Forecasted the upcoming InP substrate/feedstock bottleneck for photonics - Identified $AXTI as the main beneficiary (up 4x+) - China's suddenly enforced immediate export controls on Japan, targeting InP compounds -> shortly after my thesis identifying the China bottleneck and Sumitomo/hyperscaler vulnerabilities got a few million views... Not sure if they read my post, sorry if they did? - Predicted volatility increase of the South Korean Market and also mapped that into an IV arbitrage trade idea with $EWY - Got it spot on a week later with the Bank of Korea citing upcoming volatility - Had Bloomberg, Reuters, FT, and other news outlets citing my thesis post about $RPI - Bunch of European news sites talking about why I like $IQE - Had a bunch of French news sites and analysts from Citi, Kepler, putting out slightly aggressive notes about my Soitec ( $SOI ) TLDR thesis post. - Identified the main beneficiaries of Venezuela regime change like Gold Reserve, with the stock going up 100%+ the day after. - Published information synthesis on how much Bitcoin Venezuela might have had, and it blew up with a ton of media coverage like CNN and others! Lot of my other thesis posts like $LITE ended up playing out this year after mapping out $GOOGL TPU BOM and doubling. But it's not as cool as the ones above! In just two months! I like to stay humble, but I do want to brag from time to time. And best of all, retail investors were all early to a lot of these trends this time because of information discovery + free distribution over X. Excited to see what's to come in the future and I'm happy X gave me this opportunity to share my thoughts.

I realized by the amount of bookmarks. I lowkey dropped a banger ETF? AI Displacement Equal Weighted YTD: $AXTI: +191.53% $AAOI: +144.47% $SNDK: +140.38% $SOI: +114.3% $LITE: +61.22% $AEHR: +60.97% $BE: +56.56% $VRT: +47.42% Samsung: +42.8% $TER: +37.99% $MU: +35.1% Sk Hynix: +34.42% $NBIS: +25.57% $COHR: +24.92% Mediatek: +17.01% $INTC: +16.23% $ASML: +15.63% Advantest: +11.78% $TSM: +5.85% $COPX: +4.56% $TSEM: +2.44% $MRVL: -1.71% $NVDA: -4.55% $AVGO: -7.32% These are just the first names that came to my head. I own a lot of these personally (and don't own others like $NVDA or $BE ) but included them anyway. But honestly, I'd be happy to equal weight all these names if I weren't actively managing my portfolio concentrations. I expect the AI Displacement ETF to keep rising: As they're the largest beneficiaries of scaling compute and inference for artificial intelligence.

The news is pretty heartbreaking: $META 20% layoffs $ORCL layoffs $AMZN 600,000 workers long term layoffs as they get replaced by robotics and AI. This is a dystopian future. Companies end up with record profits, without the cost of human labor. The only way to benefit: Investing in AI as a hedge. The next few years feels like the main way to escape the permanent underclass, caused by AI displacement. The return on equity derived from AI will go to the shareholders. While the gap between those who live paycheck to paycheck, not invested in stocks. Will continue to grow. This is not the future. - Opus 4.6 is good enough to replace most software engineers today. - Waymo has started to replace taxi drivers in places like SF today. - We know $TSLA Humanoids are coming next as they’re widespread in China, today. This is happening now. Disruptions in Iran are only temporary to the accelerating AI buildout. AI has hit the inflection point, and looks inevitable. You’re already seeing US job revisions down close to 1 Million, which is staggering. And we’re seeing the newest LLMs be built by their previous models, as AI approaches the singularity (AI led recursive growth). Investing in where the compute and hardware needed to run the AI: From the datacenter/power/grid sector: $NBIS, $XLU, $VRT, $BE Photonics sector needed to scale AI: $LITE, $COHR, $AAOI, $TSEM Semi sector needed for the chips: $NVDA, $TSM, $ASML, $INTC Memory sector for the chips: $MU, $SNDK, SK Hynix, Samsung ASICs for hyperscaler AI inference: $AVGO, $MRVL, Mediatek Yields sector to make sure the chips work: $TER, $AEHR, Advantest Along with the raw materials or substrates needed for AI: $AXTI, $COPX, $SOI And many others become the single, largest, hedge against widespread AI displacement. Whoever owns the means of compute (bottlenecks, materials, datacenters): Owns the future of AI.

I've been the first few to cover many supply chain photonic names. Most are up 100-400%+ since I've posted. Here's the TLDR overview of my thesis posts: “Safest” Longs as of Today: - $TSEM (Tower Semi) - $SOI (Soitec) - $COHR - Defensible compounders over time. Soitec - Substrate monopoly over silicon photonics / CPO architectural ramp at dirt cheap valuation (after recent 40%+ rise maybe still 1.4x book) Tower Semi - P/E in the 10's for 2028, 70%+ capacity booked already, $NVDA architectural partner, and basically the pure play $TSM of photonics. Coherent - Basically does everything from materials/substrates to lasers to transceivers in photonics. As well as fundamental supplier to many other verticals. Most High Beta/Extreme Growth Longs: $AXTI - InP duopoly with Sumitomo (that getting export controlled), upstream feedstock duopoly with Vital. Basically at the top of the entire photonics food chain is AXT. There's certainty export control risks, but my thesis is that if AXT goes down, the photonic buildout with AI goes down. So might as well go long on AXT. $AAOI - 10x revenue ramp into 2027. Laser -> Design -> Assembly, Made in America. Main uncertainty is execution, scaling laser capacity that they've bought from $COHR, etc. Demand from hyperscalers are all there. Can they deliver? I'd take the risk. $IQE - Basically completely dependent on restructuring and clearing debt (~$200M MC). Known $LITE supplier for epiwafers, and their main competitor was Landmark with a $3.5B+ valuation. The latent capacity is there with reactors, but they basically need to pull off a successful pivot over to photonics and cut off legacy drag for 10x rerating. Highest risk out there, but maybe worth the reward.s Long $GOOGL TPU Ecosystem: $LITE - Basically very high BOM related to optical due to OCS monopoly for Google. If you think Google TPU is a trillion dollar program that might end up like $NVDA, go long on $LITE. Google has $175-180B capex planned for 2026, and their CTO for AI Infra said they plan to up that Y/Y, probably spending $1 trillion in the next 8 years. If that holds up, $LITE is extremely undervalued relative to forward potential. Of course the supply lasers to other hyperscalers too, but I'd say it's more heavily tethered to Google growth. _ There's a ton of others out there I've covered like: $POET - I'm personally not long, but $400M balance sheet gives it good cushion. Just found Celestial from $MRVL ramp was too far out, eg. $500 million 2028, $1 billion 2029 projections, for revenue to be too material as of 2026. It largely depends if their interposers get other hyperscaler qualifications rather than backdooring through Marvell, which was the main bull case. $HIMX- I did find this thesis to be slightly compelling as a likely $TSM COUPE supplier. But personally, I preferred $SOI, and would just put more concentration into that (since Soitec known supplier already to basically everything silicon photonics, and is just coming out of a downturn). There’s a lot more like $NOK, $SHMN, that are interesting, but I’ve personally out concentration into the ones I find most compelling. As “crowded names” like $LITE, it does not mean there’s no upside left. It just happens to be more priced in until there’s new news. There's a lot of "critical suppliers" but there's a difference between importance in the supply chain... And converting that into extreme revenue growth eg. $AAOI -> $4.5 billion in revenue. But for TLDR photonics exposure, my portfolio looks similar to this: High Concentration (Safer) $TSEM foundry, $SOI substrate, $COHR everything Mix of Long + CSP (High Volaility): $AXTI substrate/feedstock, $IQE epiwafer, $AAOI transceiver supply chain Then Long Google with $LITE

Top 10 common fallacies I keep seeing again and again on X. And some of the most important things I look out for too when doing research: 1. Being in "crowded" names like $LITE or $COHR does not mean these names won't go higher. (Just look at Nvidia throughout 2022 -> 2026). 2. Don't conflate bottlenecks and critical companies in supply chains like SpaceX or Nvidia with stock market returns. What matters is how it translates to material operating income. The reason I mention $AXTI, is likely price hikes from being that bottleneck. 3. Insider Sales are the extreme noise. You will never see me quote that anywhere to derive projections and what the MC should be at. 4. Repeat after me. TA is only an indicator, not a bible. Please stop posting TAs underneath my Soitec posts to say "overextended!!!" without any reference to fundamentals, catalysts, or macro. TA's especially, mean nothing when there's extreme fundamental changes (eg. $6B in share dilution or upcoming IPO float lockup like $BULL, $CRCL). 5. DILUTION IS DIFFERENT. ATMs are different than convertible notes that are different than loans. It's extremely nuanced. Some lead to more equity returns than others that are more harmful (eg. $IREN $6B ATM). Float dynamics, ATM sizes relative to marketcap, and all others need to be accounted for. 6. Markets are forward looking. It's just a matter of how far in the future they look. Stop only posting previous revenue guidance only to justify valuations pricing in forward growth eg. $TSEM forward growth for photonics ramp. 7. Revenue/Gross Margins/Profit are extremely, extremely nuanced. Profit can be hid in tax writeoffs, and margins can be hid in other parts of the income statement like opex, or in depreciation. So posting "gross margins/profit" (eg. $IREN) and using that to justify it vs. other neoclouds means nothing if the accounting is not normalized 8. Net Income is not the same as GAAP Net Income. True profitability from companies like $SNAP are hid by things like stock-based compensation. When a company reports non-GAAP net income of $500 million to the media, their official SEC-filed GAAP net income could be a $150 million loss because of SBC. 9. Float Dynamics + Dilution are important. You can say "oh this company is $150M MC, 30m profit" but if you're forgetting there's a massive dilution overhead at X strike, then all your research gets thrown out the drain. 10. Make sure to factor in REVENUE GROWTH/TAM. You can grow a company 200% one year, but if TAM maxes out like in Fintech then revenue growth eventually falls off the cliff. Hence why $RKLB gets premiums for infinite Space TAM growth while other companies in fintech growing at 40% Y/Y don't.

$NVDA GTC is next week. And markets are wondering what names will be announced with Nvidia’s new silicon photonics architecture. > $TSEM works with $NVDA for silicon photonics > $NVDA invested in both $COHR and $LITE to secure supply chains > $AXTI a bottleneck for InP substrates > Soitec ( $SOI ) a monopoly around SOI substrates for silicon photonics Hmmm. There’s zero clues to what companies might be in the supply chain of $NVDA! Better wait for the event to find out?

Just in 10M ago from Reuters: New confirmation from sources that Iran has deployed about a dozen mines in the Strait of Hormuz. There's two very aquatic warfare stocks I found interesting for exposure. $KRKNF the Squid🦑and $CODA the Octopus. $KRKNF: Kraken Robotics, the Andruil supplier, is one of the more pure play stocks for the acquatic warfare sector: They build Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) and SeaPower batteries that many defense primes like Andruil rely on. Anduril recently opened a facility in Rhode Island to mass produce UUVs (eg. Dive-LD and Ghost Shark). According to retail BOM estimates: - Dive-LD carries $1M to $2M CAD in Kraken hardware - Ghost Shark XL-AUV carries $8M to $10M CAD. If that Anduril ramps happens: the revenue ramp is there. I wouldn't try and model Kraken based off revenue projections but more like how much Andruil scales (similar modeling $LITE based on $GOOGL TPU) But financials, assets: $301.5M, Liabilities: $65.7M, Total debt: ~$24.1M so looks pretty healthy. 60% YoY revenue growth off 59% gross margins. As for demining the strait, they have the KATFISH mine-hunting drone. And SAS Sonar for 3D images of the seafloor for identifying buried mines. $CODA: Coda Octopus, basically pure play exposure to Iran placing mines. Their main product is Echoscope real-time 3D/4D/5D volumetric sonar that maps static and moving objects in murky, pitch-black water. This carries forward to other products like "NANO Gen Series", Echoscope version as a perception sensor for UUVs. And then a diver augmented display (that SPECWAR ordered), which is basically the Echoscope sonar feeding people data. CODA has an amazing balance sheet. Recent FY2025 report (ending Oct 2025), they hold $28.7 million in pure cash and have zero long-term debt. Gross margins are extremely high as well, consolidated gross margin of 66.5% while majority of defense contracotrs sit around 10-20%. $26.6M revenue for 2025, 30.7% Y/Y increase, and $4.1M net income, which is rare to be profitable. But basically their product set of sonar / detection looks perfect pure play for this exact scenario and they’re fundamentally very sound, without the catalyst. Regardless, Iran mining the straight isn't exactly a major TAM increase. However, it does alert investors and the government that warfare may transition underwater: Leading to more sector inflows as well as defense contract opportunities. These were my two favorites personally, just publishing my thoughts here in case other's find this helpful.

Jim Cramer: “Just impossible Day to Make Money”. Today: $AXTI: +15.08% $AAOI: +11.5% $HIMS: +6.05% $LITE: +7.06% $SNDK: +6.12% $IQE: +19.08% SK Hynix: 4.38% $MU: +4.65% $COHR: +4.86% This is following the previous post about “$150-200” Oil on Sunday. The Cramer indicator strikes again.

$AAOI is now up 4x since $30. Every photonics name from $AXTI to $LITE I’ve done a thesis on increased 2x, 3x, or 4x if you listened anon? Hope the Crude Oil to $200 or $IREN troll “insider sales” doomposters didn’t make you panic sell your positions at $80. This is why you hold through volatility and look at underlying fundamentals. Not every company can go from 450m revenue to $4.5B in just one years time.

Leading photonic names do not concern itself with Crude Oil prices spiking. $AXTI +14.13% $AAOI +6.73% $LITE +10.22% $COHR +3.39% Photonics is the next paradigm of AI, the War in Iran doesn’t change that. https://t.co/Xznwa2VDuT

$AAOI's 10x projected rev surge in optical transceiver demand by 2027 for $4.3B ARR off a $5.5B MC... Is enormous. $LITE and $COHR might be crowded, but. We'll likely see rotation upstream like: $ASML-type suppliers: - Aixtron (ETR: AIXA): ~75% share for inp MOCVD - $VECO - MOCVD and MBE (Molecular Beam Epitaxy) systems, probably second. - Oxford Instruments: Supplier to $AAOI and $COHR for plasma etch and deposition systems Merchant Epiwafer Fabs (Foundaries for photonics): - $IQE: largest outsourced compound semiconductor epiwafer manufacturer. Basically $TSM of photonics world but lot of legacy drag. - LandMark Optoelectronics: Most direct, pure-play for optical transceiver unit growth - IntelliEPI (TPE: 2462): MBE rather than MOCVD to create high-performance InP epiwafers Raw Substrate Suppliers (base materials): - $AXTI/ Sumitomo : everyone knows by now Transceiver ramp projections is staggering, and this is only 2027. It's likely exponentially increasing into 2028. $AAOI's record-breaking earnings signals the start of a new paradigm for photonics, it's a great idea to get exposure.

@yianisz Agreed! But I don’t quite think it’s crowded quite yet. Most people are in names like $LITE and $COHR and $AAOI is just getting out on their radar. I think there’s a lot of room to go but certainly depends on execution.

Yeah $AAOI is the only true domestic player assembling in Sugar Texas for 800G and 1.6T transceivers. $COHR does their stuff in Malaysia/Vietnam, and $LITE uses $FN and others. There's likely going to be a huge geopolitical premium for American domestic manufacturing on top if they hit their $4.5B ARR/40% margin projections. That being said: -> execution risk is always present -> $250m ATM overhang does impact short term stock pricing. But long term value creation is understated.

After earnings, $AAOI could easily be a $25B-$30B company next year from $5B if they hit their projections. And they're one of the only "Made in America" (Sugarland, Texas) companies out of - $LITE (global) - $COHR (global) - $FN (Thai) - $AVGO (global) - Innolight (China), and Eoptolink (China). So they likely get that "America" premium like $INTC compared to $TSM and $MU compared to Sk Hynix. But from revenue: FY Revenue: $456 million 2027 ARR by : $4.536B (~900%+ growth). Off high 30's - low 40% projected margins + hyperscaler qualifications. This is wild. But there was a $250M ATM, but that's typically pennies compared to the projection. This part is extremely interesting: -> Management stated that demand and capacity for 800G, 1.6T modules could surge nearly 10x by mid-2027. This is also a large tailwind for epiwafer companies too like $IQE and Landmark and more upstream like $AXTI. $AAOI is a core hold over 2026-2027, but there's always execution risks if they can deliver. $25-30B MC projections sound surreal but that's how wild the earnings was if they hit $4.35B ARR, off 900%+ growth (and photonics scale up is likely to continue even further into 2028-2029)

@Investmnt_Eagle $LITE, $COHR, Innolight, $AVGO, and Eoptolink. $AAOI is one of the only pure "Made in America" texas fab. So it will get the premium.

@Pacheca12345 Probably tripling my $AAOI position size after earnings. 4.5B ARR for photonics(which usually has a premium like $LITE ), ~40% margins, $5.5B MC. Again idk, this is just unheard of guidance scale up.

Holy $AAOI … Just putting it out there they’re projecting $378 million in monthly revenue for transceivers. At a $5.5B MC. This is the definition of extreme scale up. Although margins are different, $AAOI projections would actually surpass $LITE next quarter guidance by 40%: "Given the recent surge in customer inquiries and apparent rising demand, we believe that by mid-2027, 100G and 400G revenue will be approximately $90 million. 800G revenue will be approximately $217 million and 1.6 terabit revenue will be approximately $71 million monthly. Altogether, this represents $378 million in monthly revenue for transceiver products." Absolutely unholy projections unseen since $SNDK earnings.

Here's a deeper look into $IQE ($179M): IQE's hidden InP optionality versus LandMark's $3.5B valuation. And the $IREN / $CRWV "miner" pivot to photonics: Before I did a high-level shower thought overview eg. $AXTI -> $IQE -> $LITE -> $GOOGL TPUs, but this is slightly more DD. Basically: IQE is the largest independent merchant compound semi epitaxial foundry in the world by reactor count and physical capacity. However, it's trading at distressed valuations because it's burdened by a low-margin legacy wireless business, and near-term liquidity constraints. LandMark Optoelectronics (TPEX: 3081) is the closest comparison. As a pure-play proxy for AI InP demand in the 800G and 1.6T optical interconnect market, LandMark commands a ~$3.8B billion market cap with large premiums in comparison to $IQE which is trading at a $175M MC. But if you look deeper at the physical hardware, the disconnect is pretty fascinating: LandMark's operational scale is physically limited. They only operate around 27 to 30 Metal-Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) reactors out of a single campus in Taiwan per some estimates. IQE, by stark contrast, possesses well over 100+ MOCVD and MBE systems globally. The underlying replacement value and structural capacity of IQE’s photonics asset base looks to vastly exceeds its current public market valuation. Kind of like if a Bitcoin miner has 3GW capacity, vs 750 MW, there's large optionality to monetize it if they convert it. And we're seeing an transceiver bottleneck too: -> The downstream demand for optical transceivers is experiencing unprecedented acceleration. -> Extreme demand, from $GOOGL, $MSFT, $AMZN and others flow directly up the hardware supply chain. This puts immense pressure on transceiver integrators like Innolight, optical component manufacturers like $COHR, $LITE, and $AVGO, and ultimately, the merchant epitaxial foundries that grow the raw epiwafers required for the foundational laser chips. And since other players are hitting a physical capacity ceiling, vertically integrated players like $COHR are capped out, hyperscalers and module makers are desperate for alternative capacity in players like $IQE And.. Hidden entirely beneath IQE's consolidated corporate lines is a massive fleet of Aixtron AIX 2800G4-TM reactors. These are natively dual-capable (GaAs/InP) and can be repurposed for InP production at a relatively modest cost ($500K-$1.5M per reactor) but take few months or year to refactor. And obviously qualification and yield risk added to execution (similar to Bitcoin miners doing software orchestration to GPUs like $CRWV). But still, IQE has the capacity kinda like $IREN or Bitcoin miners that pivoted to HPC. And LandMark is proof of the valuation pure play exposure brings. The Major Question.. Unlocking Trapped Value: While IQE generates significantly higher top-line revenue than LandMark, it's priced ($175M MC) for bankruptcy because of its gross debt of 45M. But the debt looks like pennies to hyperscalers: The explicit, stated goal of their ongoing Lazard-advised strategic review is to definitively conclude the sale of IQE Taiwan (their legacy GaAs wireless business) and utilize the proceeds to completely and permanently extinguish the parent company's restrictive debt profile. Once again their convertible loan notes is a norminal face value of £21.2 million, for proceeds of £18 million for the company. Then they're net debt, £23.5 million. -> The immediate debt burden requiring clearance: £23.5M HSBC facility + £21.2M CLN = ~£45M. Assuming a highly sale price for the IQE Taiwan unit of between £100 million and £150 millio (not guaranteed), IQE would net £50 million to £100 million in surplus cash after becoming completely debt-free. However, RF GaAs is not currently "hot", so in a distressed asset sale it might only be £50M to £60M, which gives it enough room to clear debt alone and little cushion room. The Geopolitical Pivot: Once debt-free, IQE can shift its massive, currently underutilized manufacturing capacity in places like North Carolina and Wales toward the InP epiwafer market for datacenters. It creates a fully capitalized, purely Western-based supply chain for the most critical bottleneck in photonics, eliminating more dependency on Asia at a time when the US and UK are heavily prioritizing domestic semiconductor infrastructure. Basically, just given the amount of raw assets $IQE has: -> Successfully selling off their Taiwan business wipes out the going-concern risks, clears all debt, and leaves them to monetize their 6-inch inp epiwafer tech directly for the Tier 1 optical transceiver players. It's a deep asset value trade on a successful restructuring to unlock trapped value. And a currently well-known supplier for optical networking for hyperscalers (so not a science project). Downside risks are excessive dilution and failure to restructure. But given it's geopolitical importance to Western supply chains and hyperscaler supply chains, it seems to have more cushion. I personally decided to enter this long as a massive potential turnaround. But again, it's not for everyone and it's extremely high risk. TLDR: -> IQE is priced like a distressed RF supplier. -> It owns real photonics-capable infrastructure. -> If gross 41M debt is removed and management reallocates capex toward InP, the equity could rerate materially. -> Restructuring + capacity optionality trade with extreme risk but extreme upside. Closest comparison is Bitcoin miners like $IREN or $CIFR that pivot their GW capacity to AI HPC. They have a ton of physical hardware (GW capacity), and need funds to pivot (either through sale of Taiwan business or dilution). It's an optimistic trade I took they can do it (with wiggle room like $INTC given their geopolitical importance to the West). The downside is extreme dilution, which is always a possibility (meaning your equity gets wiped out to 0 to clear their debts or to help them refactor). I just found that 45M gross debt (14.4% of float + debt) wasn't the most and management was looking to clear that through asset sales rather than dilution to shareholders. Just wanted to publish deeper breakdown and more risks of this very binary **high risk**, but potentially high upside trade.

$AAOI is another photonics name that has just doubled in the last two months! Feels like every photonics company from $AXTI and $AAOI has been doubling or tripling recently? I’ve dubbed this the “Elite Four” for photonics exposure: 1. $LITE (High BOM of the TPU) 2. $AXTI (Materials for Eveything) 3. $COHR (huge part of supply chain) 4. $AAOI (made in America) Others like $IQE I’ve personally added recently slightly more for risk-on portfolios (epiwafer foundry for $LITE and others), but don’t have a great financial profile. That being said glad 2 months later, a lot of these names are taking off

@PhotonCap Absolutely, when you map the photonics buildout and projected growth with $LITE and others, people can just see how staggering it is. But they miss upstream precursors that make it all happen, which is why I’m expecting it to be a major bottleneck.

Thanks for following along! I'll just give you a breakdown: I like Fintech and AI, those are basically my two main growth investment baskets. Stablecoins like $CRCL are in the fintech domain. As for AI domain I am just supply chain investing: Neoclouds -> Top level consumer/hyperscaler cloud providers for AI. $NBIS is my favorite. Go down the supply chain, who helps manufacture the GPUs used that $NBIS and $IREN buy? -> GPUs from $NVDA, some $AMD, and maybe ASICs from $GOOGL, $MSFT, $AMZN down the road. Who helps create those GPUs -> $TSM Who helps scale up those GPU clusters in data centers? -> $LITE, $COHR, $AAOI What are those raw materials used to produce the interconnects to scale up those GPU clusters? -> $AXTI They're all ride the AI CapEx wave thematically, but the exposure is all different. I never typically never say "1" because they all have different risk-profiles. if I had to choose the safest one for just compounding: $TSM If I had to choose the one with the highest possible upside over 6 months? $AXTI from material shock, but it could also go to 0 if China blocks exports. If I had to choose the best chance to 5-10x and become a hyperscaler over 2 years? $NBIS. But there's risks from dilution, ATMs stalling out the stock for a few months, but highest asymmetrical upside over periods of time from 7-9B arr 20% ebit in the future But of course, if AI CapEx wave slows, then they all go down, which it's good to diversify in other segments like fintech.

$COHR is amazing and probably the leading US company for InP substrate prod with their new 6in wafer fab. Two nuances: 1. Their production is nowhere close to the scale needed for hyperscalers that $AXTI and Sumitomo currently outputs 2. They are bottlenecked by upstream InP feedstock needed to grow crystals (owned by Vital, $DOWA, and $AXTI (captive)). CEO said in their ER that their capacity was maxed out and limited by InP lasers (and by 1 hop InP needed to produce them) My thought process is that instead of placing more order backlogs with $COHR, hyperscalers would go upstream. They would directly source 6n-7n from Vital, $DOWA, $AXTI and others that control InP, and give them to fabs like Sumitomo / $COHR or one level higher, buy out stock of InP substrates -> hand to $LITE as insurance. That being said a lot of money will likely be poured into Western supply chains but their capacity is nowhere enough since they're still bottlenecked upstream.

When I made my WSB post, I'm half joking about $AXTI. But not about the extreme bottleneck and InP supply shock. This is a call on critical materials game theory. If we see many historically at bottlenecks: 1. Dysprosium: ~2,300% increase (~$100/kg -> $2400/kg 2010-11) 2. Neon Gas: ~1000%-2,000% increase (2022) 3. Rhodium: ~$3,000/oz -> ~$29,000/oz (~860%) The current Indium spike compared to others? 89% : (~$440 / kg -> ~$832 / kg). Critical materials used for semiconductors like Neon Gas (semi-grade lithography lasers), spiked over 2000% because chipmakers like Intel and Samsung had stockpiled during Ukraine conflicts. They absorbed the cost because neon is a small fraction of the chip's value. Like Neon, InP is a critical "enabler" material. The cost of the wafer is small relative to the cost of the AI cluster ($100 wafer vs $30,000 GPU). Hyperscalers would happily absorb huge price increases rather than delay deployment. We haven't seen that yet with InP, but we likely will. Traditional analysts and many AI Models do not understand how to model critical bottlenecks because there's not many examples in history where an extremely cheap commodity like InP with few hundred million TAM suddenly became the most critical material for the multi-trillion+ AI buildout. Currently, hyperscalers likely placed backlogs on downstream providers Coherent / $LITE, but likely didn't realize that laser production and capacity are backlogged because of materials shortage upstream. There is a supply storage both for InP substrates ( $AXTI + Sumitomo + JX production) as well as the Indium Phosphide feedstock ( $AXTI, Vital, $DOWA) where demand exceeds supply by multiple factors. $NVDA originally contributed to the supply shortage by locking in a large percent of capacity of EML. But shortage is already pre-hyperscaler ramp, where majority of the demand will come in late 2026 into 2027 when Trainium or Maia show up. But how do you get around original chokepoint and securing your AI deployment? Buying out substrate capacity directly from ( $AXTI, Sumitomo) or going one step lower and buying InP feedstock and passing them to substrate producers so Google's TPU program doesn't stall. And similar to how other critical materials were needed for lithography lasers. Indium Phopshide and InP substates are even more critical to the entire AI buildout: 1. Nvidia: InfiniBand / NVLink (optical - 800G/1.6T EML Transceivers) - Extreme dependency on InP 2. Google: Jupiter / Apollo (optical - OCS), Extreme dependency 3. Microsoft: Azure Maia: High (800G DR4/FR4) 4. Meta: F16 / Artemis (800G) High and this is not considering other Mag7 companies like $AMZN or other companies scaling out ASICs with photonics. Currently, analysts are modeling InP companies based on TAM. For example, the total InP Wafer Market from 2024 is $183M – $205M Straits Research, Mordor Intelligence (2024) - 6-inch (150mm) Segment TAM: $65m - Projected Total InP TAM (2032): $580M – $700M Now looking at TAM for Laser-Grade Indium Phosphide Feedstock: - Polycrystalline InP Feedstock TAM: ~$300 Million - High-Purity Indium (6N/7N) Only: ~$400 Million Substrate Data: Mordor Intelligence (InP Wafer Market 2025-2030) and Straits Research. Feedstock Data: Market Report Analytics (Indium Phosphide Polycrystalline Industry Analysis 2025). This was an extremely cheap telecom product and now it's one of the most precious materials in the entire supply chain. Increasing prices 3000% would only be low single digits of BOM value to $GOOGL TPU deployments or $MSFT MAIA deployments. And the project Microsoft ramp in 2027 alone would take up double digits of all InP capacity. Like Intel or semis back in 2022, hyperscalers will likely buy insurance directly with InP substrates + InP, similar to how semis stockpiled Neon Gas. If the "TAM" really was a few hundred million, but every single hyperscaler would face deployment delays if they don't secure this material. Then this becomes a game theory bidding war. In a $20B TPU deployment is stalled because of a $100 substrate, a hyperscaler would easily pay $10,000 (100 times current prices) for it without hesitation. That's why when you look at InP substrate companies and see $50m backlog (from 2024), that same $50m worth of capacity for future ones could be valued at $500m, $5B or more in an extreme scenario. This is a "tail-risk" investment, extremely reward if hyperscalers get bottlenecked by this material, but not without significant geopolitical risk and dilution. I don't know what's going to happen, but I do expect there to be an immense bottleneck in 2026 both in InP substrates and InP feedstock. So, if companies like $AXTI owns 40% of the entire InP supply chain (source: AXT CEO) and is valued at $700m, what value would you place on it?

Uhh, from my own personal research so far, to cover all grounds I’ve liked: 1. $AXTI at the very bottom of the entire supply chain + 1/3rd of InP substrates 1/4th of InP. Completely unheard of that AI supply chain is tethered to this $700m stock. 2. $DOWA + Sumitomo Electric for Western Hedge on substrate + materials. 3. $AAOI, $LITE for hyperscaler chips, one for $AMZN/ $MSFT, the other for everything but more levered to $TPU 4. $MRVL + $AVGO I think that’s kind of all you need to capture photonics BOM value + InP supply shock. There’s some other interesting ones like Landmark Opto that I’m looking at now. $POET didn’t quite make that list and you’d be getting exposure through $MRVL anyway, unless there’s something I missed

This is a research note on point failure of the entire AI buildout in $AXTI/China from both substrate production and laser-grade Indium Phosphide. I’m not doing valuation analysis on individual companies But if this flow stops, $LITE, $COHR, $AVGO to $GOOGL, $MSFT faces extreme delays. I’ll write something else about valuing critical material bottlenecks if you want. But basically if a backlog was $50m from 2024 and TAM was $150m. And now because it’s a critical material, if Google would be willing to pay 50 times that (only a few percent increase on BOM cost to stay alive), then the valuation math of that original $50m backlog -> $2.5B for future capacity changes.

Agreed, for traders, this should be an interesting opportunity like Lithium in 2021 when EVs came about or HBM currently with Sk Hynix and Micron if people recognized the bottlenecks early. Tons of opportunity ($AAOI only up 2.9% YTD despite new hyperscaler orders. Tied to hyperscaler deployments like Maia/Tranium). $MRVL with extreme demand but mainly in q4 2026, into 2027 from Maia, down 22% YTD. And $POET as an indirect beneficiary of $MRVL ramp too. Shortages throughout the entire supply chain with InP substrates. $GOOGL ramping up TPU which benefits $LITE and vertical integration + record backlog from $COHR Extremely absurd players like $AXTI with a $700m marketcap basically being the single point of failure for the future AI ramp. Not quite sure how you place a value on that lol. $COHR, $LITE and substrate providers are hitting the capacity limits now. We’ll see how much time it takes for his to go to the extremes like memory.

@crux_capital_ Thanks, love your posts on $LITE, $POET $AAOI $COHR, $MRVL, and other photonic players too

Yep, $LITE and $COHR are amazing and are up quite a bit since they tons pricing power. Go few levels deeper into $AXTI (vertically integrated), Sumitomo -> Dowa, etc. the concentration risk + bottleneck flashes warning signs. With HBM, it was an investment opportunity when people found that bottleneck. There's likely that same overlooked opportunity with photonic supply chains now when hyperscalers hoard materials and acquire capacity.

The "InP Chokepoint": The Bottleneck of the AI Buildout explanation: The future of $NVDA Blackwell, $META MTAI, $GOOGL TPU, and $MSFT Maia ramp is tied to: A $700M small cap $AXTI and $SMTOY. The AI "Growth" story ends in 2026 if there's no solution to InP. Here's why: The AI industry started its migrating to photonics for future ASIC/GPU deployments, because copper is hitting a physical limit. However, in doing so, hyperscalers traded the common material for InP (Indium Phosphide), when there's only a few factories capable of producing 6-inch InP wafers at the purity levels required for lasers. Let's take for example Google and their TPU v7 Ironwood program: Google uses Optical Circuit Switching (OCS), in simpler terms, switchboards made of light. For every one of those TPUs in the pod to talk, they require InP-based lasers. $LITE, which works with Google on this, largely depends on InP substrate (eg. AXT/Sumitomo) to make them. If they don't have it Google's entire Ironwood program doesn't just "slow down", it hits the wall. Modern ASICs/GPUs from $NVDA GB series, $AMZN Trainium, $MSFT Maia, $META MTAI have all made the same bet: Light is the way forward. Now, here's the issue. The entire Western AI roadmap is currently tethered to a $700M small-cap and a single Japanese company that produce majority of the world's InP substrates required for photonics. It's currently a duopoly (rough estimates majority supply ~60% between AXT + Sumitomo), with recent estimates of ~70%+ coming from Sumitomo Electric, AXT, Freiberger, JX, and Visual Photonics Epitaxy (filling in the gaps). Regardless, the entire future AI supply chain is thinner than a needle: - Moomoo Research: InP market is in a state of "global scramble" and "serious supply shortage" NVIDIA GB200 rollout (scale-out still requires tons of InP, not NVL72 within-the-rack comm). - Demand for high-speed transceivers today probably exceeds the supply by almost a factor of two (LightCounting) - Seeing record booking, but explicitly "supply-constrained by InP lasers" ( $COHR CEO Q3 ER) - McKinsey: 40% to 60% shortfall for 800G modules and a 30% to 40% shortfall for 1.6T modules. And these reports are likely understanding + very conserative given the demand ramp. Even going off Microsoft's projections on Maia ramp, ( est. 1M+ Maia by 2027 on UBS $MRVL note), with 2 million+ units of 1.6T transceivers over the next year, this volume is so large it represents a double-digit percentage of global substrate output. The projected "exponential growth" of AI is about to collide with the reality of critical material production. So, the "Ironwood", "MTIA" and "Maia" ramps aren't just ambitious, they may be impossible under current material constraints. Even if $COHR, JX Nippon, Sumitomo, $AXTI, and others, ramp up at maximum capacity (eg. $COHR / JX -> 6-inch InP wafers for 4x capacity), they still might not be able to meet the increasing demand from hyperscalers. Especailly with demand spikes occurring, eg. just for $NVDA alone (GB200/GB300 revisions). There are technical solutions like silicon photonics is one solution to bridge the gap, but this still largely requires an external InP laser as the light source. TFLN or quantum dot lasers are many many years away. There's probably no escaping the InP requirements for the next few years. So, the mismatch between chip design and material availability has created a strategic chokepoint, where if you go to the very bottom of the supply chain, very few companies control a majority of allocations, pricing, and supply. This is especially dangerous when compounded with geopolitical risks on US/China relations + export controls. That being said, here's what's probably what's going to happen: - Price Spikes: Prices from $AXTI, JX, Sumitomo will spike significantly -> $LITE, $COHR, Innolight (also increases prices from pass down) - Hyperscalers will directly stockpile materials, bypassing traditional component procurement and buying InP substrate inventory from $AXTI, JX Nippon, Sumitomo, and directly to consign to transceiver manufacturers like $LITE. (eg. Meta would bypass transceiver companies and go directly to AXT or Sumitomo) - Hyperscalers will buy out production allocation ( like $NVDA that has already aggressively "locked in" EML capacity (manufactured on InP substrates). Buying a substrate manufacturer or production allocation would become a necessity to so others like $NVDA or $GOOGL doesn't starve them out. As TPU v7 and and as other hyperscalers ramp up in 2026-2027, we will likely enter a "hunger games" phase for substrates where only each hyperscaler will be cannibalizing each other's growth for resource allocation. Companies like $NVDA (with record amounts of pre-allocation), might ramp be okay for the time being, but others programs would likely face major delays. Thoughts: 1. Some hyperscalers might be fine ( $NVDA). Others like $GOOGL and $MSFT will need to buy out materials + allocation before others do. 2. Industry needs to double down on engineering shifts like copper life extension and more material efficient ways like SiPh. 3. Move to 6-inch wafers for yields (eases things, but still not enough to meet demand) So the way things are now, the multi-trillion dollar AI scaling are tethered to some obscure $700m company $AXTI and $SMTOY. It seems inevitable that AI will hit the physical ceiling because of InP substrate capacity unless architectures change. In 2024, the bottleneck was GPUs. In 2025, it was HBM. In 2026, the primary constraint will likely be the optical interconnect, and specifically, the InP substrates that power them. This has now become the hidden bottleneck of the AI buildout.

That’s what’s so incredibly alarming, that the Western AI buildout might be held at choke point by an obscure $700m company like $AXTI and $SMTOY. InP substrates were incredibly niche for telecom, but it’s suddenly a national security emergency as it became the material used for the world’s lasers and optional interconnects. I’m not quite sure the top level vendors realized this or at least didn’t realize the scale of this issue (eg. Signing agreements with $LITE without going deeper into the material suppliers for Lite), as the supply chain is incredibly becoming choke pointed by two companies. Google’s TPU v7 ramp for example placed an unprecedented strain/dependency on the InP supply chain that simply didn't exist a few months ago, since they use OCS for their chip pods, which is almost all in on photonics. As we’ve hit the upper limits with copper, the AI industry's reliance on AXTI is essentially a "single point of failure” on some small cap that supplies the materials for everything. I’m not looking at revenue numbers here, this dependency is just absurd, the 1.6T networking just breaks. I’m not sure where companies go from here, I’m sure they’ll try and hoard materials or secure multi-year agreements but either way two companies hold all the cards.

Thanks, we might not see a InP substrate bottleneck yet, but we’ll likely see it when hyperscaler ASICs (TPU, Trainium, Maia, etc.) ramp up -> supply strains like memory mid-2026. That doesn’t quite mean material providers should be valued like $LITE, but the fact that the entire future AI buildout has a single point of failure that comes from a small $600m company like $AXTI is amusing.

Disclosure: I have positions in $LITE, $AAOI, and $AXTI in the photonics sector. From my own personal thought process, if I see the entire AI industry and players like $LITE and Innolight bottlenecked by some $600m company worth less than a new pre-revenue LLM startup, I’m long. There is downside risk including changing ownership dilution structures if China wants to restrict $AXTI in US markets.

Warning: The entire AI industry will likely be bottlenecked by two companies: 1. $AXTI ($700M) 2. $SMTOY ($31.7B) Which both control 60–70%+ of the world's InP substrates. Future $NVDA, $GOOGL TPU v7 pods, $META, $MSFT, $AMZN hyperscaler clusters require InP-based lasers and receivers. $AVGO, $LITE, $COHR use for EMLs for 800G/1.6T transceivers, DFB lasers, and other optical infra. Without InP substrates, the supply chain falters. After looking at TPU BOM to Maia BOM, it looks like future ASICs + GPUs + hyperscaler deployments are heavily reliant on photonics. And two vendors could freeze the global InP substrate market covering nearly all of: - Hyperscaler optics (TPU pods, etc) - Optical transceivers (5g, data) - LiDAR (robotaxis, drones, military) -Optical Modules (interconnect clusters) - Silicon photonics laser dies (Nvidia’s future co-packaged optics and Intel/Broadcom SiPh engines use InP CW laser arrays.) Since these companies make up majority of the market supply: -AXTI (est. ~30–35%) -Sumitomo (est.~30%) - JX Nippon (est. 10-15%) That’s it. (eg. 2021 industry note from Yole states that "Sumitomo Electric + AXT together had “more than 75%” of the InP substrate market") Hyperscalers/AI are moving toward photonics but the entire AI industry is fragile. If either $AXTI or $SMTOY stop supplying materials, the entire future AI buidlout gets crippled. It's even crazier that a $700m company could become the the center of it all. InP substrate will likely one of the biggest bottlenecks alongside HMB as the AI industry shifts to photonics.

@jvthed210725 $LITE is personally my favorite since it’s central to every ASIC + gets much higher BOM share with OCS architectures like TPU. $AAOI is levered Maia and Trainium ramp and we should get Maia 1M+ ramp 2026-2027 as per UBS note + other research firms, so it’s hidden opportunity

Personal Research: $MSFT Maia 300 supply chain. On a $MRVL report, UBS est. 1M+ Maia by 2027. An est. of $18B+ is estimated to flow down to suppliers from Maia ASIC ramp. Here's where it goes: 1. $MRVL - $8-12B revenue (~30-40% margin) as the prime beneficary. They design the digital plumbing (SerDes, interconnects), buy the HBM4 memory from SK Hynix, pay TSMC for the 2nm wafers and CoWoS packaging, and sell the finished module to Microsoft. We'll likely see a large re-rating in Marvell when it comes time for Maia ramp late 2026, early 2027, especially given how much revenue this brings in. 2. The Optical Fabric: ~$3 Billion to $4 Billion Primary Beneficiaries: Applied Optoelectronics ( $AAOI ), Coherent ( $COHR ), Innolight Maia clusters require a 1:1 or higher ratio of transceivers to GPUs. For 1.6T speeds (required for Maia 300), the optical content per node is estimated at $3,000+ (approx. 6x 800G/1.6T modules per accelerator). Here AAOI Wins Big: Unlike $MRVL (which is $70B), $AAOI is a $2.5B company. Capturing even 20-30% of this $3B pie ($600M-$900M) would triple + their current ARR, but the amount captured is dependent on their InP Texas Fab scaling (could be a lot more or less). So Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI) and Marvell's optical DSP business are the silent winners, riding the 1.6T upgrade cycle required to interconnect these massive chips. Companies like $TSM gain another $3-4B revenue, but that's medium volume compared to their $100B+ revenue. (just speaking to how much of a giant TSM is) For the silicon BOM breakdown: 1. Compute Logic (ASIC) - TSM + Intel Foundry/18A Marvell (Design), TSMC, Intel, ARM/Synopsys? ($2,800 - $3,500) 2. Memory (est. HBM4? (6-8 stacks), estimate). SK Hynix, Samsung ($3,360 - $4,500) 3. I/O & Cache Die - TSMC N5/N4 Marvell, TSMC ($400 - $600) 4. Advanced Packaging - CoWoS-L / Foveros Direct TSMC, Intel ($900-$1300) 5. Thermal Solution - Microfluidic Cold Plate / TIM ($200-400) 6. Misc (High-Current Inductors, Caps) ($150-$200) Total Silicon BOM: $7,860 - $10,550 This is really high level doesn't go into Passive/Substrate/Lid (Ibiden, Unimicron), Test & Assembly (Advantest, Teradyne), etc. Now if we look deeper at optical BOM and what $MSFT is doing with hollow core fiber and OCS: DSP / SerDes IP: $MRVL ($800 - $1,200) SiPh Engine (CPO): Marvell / Intel ($600 - $900) Laser Source (ELS): $AAOI, $LITE ($300 - $600) Transceiver Assembly: $AAOI, Innolight ($400 - $600) Fiber Cabling: Hollow Core Fiber / MPO ( $MSFT) ($200 - $300) Total Optical BOM~$2,300 - $3,600~25% of Total System Cost We've established $LITE and Innolight as the two major players in photonics already (within $NVDA and every single hyperscaler ASIC) However, $AAOI MC is a fraction of $MRVL and $LITE as a microcap, making the Maia opportunity far more transformative for its stock. Someting also to note is Fubon Research est Maia300 chip is set to start prod in late 2026 with about 300,000 to 400,000 units, increasing to 1.2 to 1.5 million units in 2027, but we're just going with the ~1M figure from UBS. (so might ramp up more) But the shift to 1.6T and the specific requirement for high-power lasers for hollow-core/OCS networks is a big tailwind. If AAOI captures a portion Maia optical BOM, they triple or quadruple their ARR from one client alone by 2027 (not including $AMZN). Risk: The primary risk is qualification failure. If their lasers fail Microsoft’s rigorous reliability testing, they could be replaced by $LITE overnight. However, Maia 300 ramp signals the start of the hyperscaler ASIC trade and key suppliers are there. The companies that benefit the most from this specific ASIC late 2026-2027? Looks like $AAOI, $MRVL, $TSM, and SK Hynix. Warning: This is speculative research + modeling given public materials + deep research + mapping. There is no public breakdown and news of this information, do not treat it as a fact.

@bricked_trades $MRVL is a great long, I'll write a separate thesis on their role in maia 300. This thesis was about $LITE though... So two different stocks.

Uhh $AAOI is just a levered long in Trainium and Maia, since they’re not involved in TPU/Blackwell unlike $LITE from public info. Maia was pushed backed to 2026, with ramp up in likely EOY into 2027. Esp with rumors $AAOI co-developing by new architecture with Microsoft, they’ll likely scale up together. Anyway whenever those two kick into gear, we’ll likely see more things be re-rated. It seems more of an inevitability given every hyperscaler wants their on asic. But main thing is production ramp/execution on the $AAOI side.

$AAOI is up 24% and $LITE is 5% since my thesis today. From BOM analysis, LITE ($27B) is levered toward TPU Ironwood due to OCS but benefits from NVDA + all ASICs. AAOI ($2.5B), is levered toward MSFT MAIA ramp and Amazon Trainium. InP like HBM, will be a bottleneck for 2026 as they’re the foundational materials used for lasers in these deployments. Similar to memory bottlenecks with Micron and SK Hynix, we’ll likely see attention drawn to InP fabs, such as $AAOI, which happens to be one of the sole ones in America (COHR,Macom) But compared to $LITE that is up 362% YTD due to the success of Google’s TPU (from Meta and Anthropic purchase orders), $AAOI is only up 7% YTD. We’re largely seeing this because there’s a lack of retail or media attention on the $AMZN Trainium or $MSFT Maia deployments, which are largely expected to ramp up in 2026-2027. However they’re all likely to succeed due to each hyperscaler wanting to lower costs of inference for their own cloud platform. If we see other hyperscalers adopt OCS for optimized performance that the TPU achieved, expect $LITE to re-rate more than they have now given their monopoly in that specific segment. However, if we see $MSFT Maia ramp up (given $AAOI is likely developing a new architecture for them), and $AMZN Trainium ramp up ($4B warrant + purchase orders), expect $AAOI to rerate. Photonics and InP will be the new bottleneck like memory. We’ll likely see investments pour down stream to players like $COHR, Innolight, $LITE, and hidden levered plays on specific hyperscaler ASICs like $AAOI as a theme in 2026. The market is currently rewarding the Google TPU supply chain but might be missing other hyperscaler ASIC ramps.

Not really! Markets are starting to realize $LITE's role in every single hyperscaler ASIC deployment + blackwell and when you look at BOM, it's a whopping amount, especially in TPU v7. Lite is the photonics leader but many there's others like $AAOI, which are levered to MSFT Maia and AMZN Trainium (which hasn't moved at all yet). So opportunity in photonics is there next year.

Yeah $LITE is incredible after seeing how it's in every single ASIC + $NVDA blackwell deployments. Then once you do BOM analysis and model TPU/GPU deployments, it looks undervalued even at ATHs. Then there's $AAOI, which is similar to LITE but levered toward AMZN | MSFT ASICs. It's one of the only InP Fabs in US and will scale up depending on how Trainium and Maia do. It's a $2.5B MC too. Photonics/Memory is going to be extremely crazy in 2026.

Among $LITE, $COHR, Innolight, etc. I've found $LITE to be the most asymmetrical setup since it's central to ironwood (with OCS), blackwell, and other hyperscaler ASICs. However, $AAOI is extreme alpha. Especially as a levered play on $AMZN Trainium, $MSFT Maia ASICs scale up + one of the only InP fab in US. Although they have $4B $AMZN warrants + purchase agreements, it does seem likely that Dec's orders were Maia-based clusters. There's rumors that $AAOI seems to be developing a new optical interconnect architecture specifically for $MSFT's silicon too. $AAOI hasn't moved at all, despite hyperscaler ASIC hype + photonic rallies, so it's a hidden gem for sure at $2B MC. However, it is highly levered to $MSFT and $AMZN (which will likely succeed + deploy their own ASICs at scale given their own cloud departments)

I only have $LITE and $AAOI lol. But how I'd frame it is $LITE and $COHR are basically duopolies in photonics. With $LITE extra leveraged on Google TPU growth. Then there's $AAOI, extreme alpha + leverage call on $MSFT + $AMZN hyperscaler ASICs. No action yet, no major runup (even down 12% this year despite being a photonics player) because there's no investor hype about Amazon Trainium or Microsoft Maia (yet).

$LITE is in the goldilocks moment where every single GOOGL TPU + hyperscaler ASIC + NVDA blackwell depends on it. Right now they're supply constrained from demand (similar to Micron). From what I understand, photonics right now is a duopoly ( $COHR and Lite). However, for OCS, which is what Google TPU architecture uses for better performance, $LITE is a monopoly from their patent portfolio + tech. If $MSFT, $AMZN end up adopting OCS, it's just a holy moment for LITE. Hyperscaler vertical intergration of InP fabs is just way too difficult near term. Nobody will likely replace them next few years at least (maybe 2027-2028 increasing competion from $AVGO) but as of now, they're just supply constrained right now.

@manukafirth Another good one is $AXTI which is the materials supplier for $LITE / photonics. $500m mc

"Late". $LITE is a $26B MC in the center of every future $GOOGL TPU deployment, $NVDA/ $AMZN / other GPU/ASICs. 8-12% BOM share of every Google TPU v7. This is like saying $NVDA was "late" when price it was a $1T MC. But if you want want another player, $AAOI. $MSFT is using them for Maia ASICs and are likely creating a new architecture with $AAOI. They also have a $4B warrant + purchase agreement with $AMZN. So it's more of a long $MSFT Maia + $AMZN Trainium ASIC play but markets haven't really cared about those two hyperscaler ASICs yet. If there's any positive news about those two $AAOI will revalue extremely fast. Everyone jumped on the $GOOGL TPU bandwagon after $META reportedly was going to buy a bunch though.

The $LITE thesis: The hidden monopoly in the AI. Lumentum is up 316% YTD, but might be 1000%+ by 2027. Micron ($300B) or TSM ($1.5T) sit in the center of every TPU/GPU deployed. But same with $LITE, but it's a $26B MC. In Every, Single, TPU from Google, $LITE makes unbelievable amounts of profit for their marketcap. That's because it's the standard for Optical Circuit Switching (OCS) + optical networking. It's also in - $NVDA Blackwell -$AMZN Trainium - and other hyperscaler ASICs. Lumentum sits in the holy trinity of every single chip deployment for photonics. And for every TPU capex spent, $LITE takes 8-12%. For every Nvidia GPU, $LITE takes ~2-3% (split between Innolight and some others, so the math gets a bit complex). But some napkin math on NVDA GPU deployments alone for BOM: NVIDIA Blackwell (GB200): HBM memory: ~50–55% (SK Hynix (Lead), Micron, Samsung) Logic (GPU Die): ~25-30% ( $TSM 4NP) CoWoS Packaging: ~13-18% $TSM Optics/Network: ~3–5% (Innolight, Lumentum, Coherent) PCB/Power: 5% For Google TPIU "Ironwood" TPU v7: HBM Memory: 38-42% Samsung / SK Hynix Logic Die: TSM ~28-33% Design/I.O: 8-10% MediaTek Optical Network: 10-14% ( $LITE (primary), $COHR secondary) Optical Switch: 2-4% $LITE $LITE est. total cluster share: ~8–12% Just an FYI, Google's "Optical" BOM share (8–12%) is an anomaly due to their unique Optical Circuit Switch (OCS) monopoly. Just for some napkin math: $40B Google TPU spend by 2027. $LITE captures 10% (30-40% margins), $1.5B+ FCF from Google alone, 17x earnings from just their primary customer. (analysts are probably extremely off with projecting TPU spend scaling). Not even including their split from $AMZN Trainium, $NVDA Blackwell, $MSFT Maia, and other chip deployments. $LITE is in the center of every single TPU/GPU future chip deployment for now and takes a cut. The only downside is they're the clear market leader now, but $AVGO and $COHR are likely set up to compete by 2027-2028. However... People say "$26B, ATH, why are you buying now". This is the reason. They're involved in every future single TPU/GPU/ASIC deployed. $LITE could end up easily over $60B+ if Google TPUs, and other chip spend ramps up and LITE takes a 2-3% (from $NVDA, $AMZN, $MSFT) or 8-12% cut (from $GOOGL) for every single dollar spent.

@itsthesquonky I’ll do some research today on it, thanks for the shout. I’m already into quite a bit of micro caps like $AAOI which is leveraged $LITE imo just for the $MSFT Maia ramp. There’s the conference Jan 6-8 I think which should be a catalyst if Microsoft reveals more news about it

Thanks for the $LITE shoutout. I didn't realize how instrumental it was to $NVDA blackwell, $GOOGL TPUs, and $AMZN Trainium chips. Insane how it's part the core of single GPU/TPU/ASIC from every hyperscaler (hence why it's high-conviction) As for $CRDO, similar ground to $ALAB regarding high-Nvidia like margins, triple digit Y/Y growth, and hyperscaler dependencies for connectivity.

So I’d say $RKLB is definitely the most overvalued right now. $LITE is edging toward the overbought territory but it definitely warrants a re-rating given how critical it is in TPUv7, Trainium, and Blackwell chips. $NBIS and $CRCL are most undervalued out of the bunch, then goes $ALAB.

I’ve added 2 new stocks to my extreme growth high conviction basket in my personal portfolio. I’ve never been wrong before about high conviction stocks on longer timeframes (eg. $HOOD $18 -> $100+) My 5 high conviction multi-bagger stocks for 2026 are now: $NBIS - AI Compute and Robotaxis $RKLB - Space $ALAB - Connectivity And the two new ones are: $CRCL - Money Printer $LITE - Hyperscaler ASICs I’ll do longer DD thesis on Circle and Lite on follow ups. I’m confident having just these 5 will heavily outperform 99.9% of portfolios.

Just In: Amazon's $10B OpenAI Funding and The AI Supply Chain Ripple Effect. $AMZN is set to invest $10B+ in OpenAI at a $500B+ valuation Why this is a MASSIVE structural shift for AI stocks: 1. De-Risking the AI DC trade: ( $ORCL, $CRWV, $APLD, $CORZ ) With the SPEED Bill mentioned earlier, the main issues affecting Neoclouds were: 1. DC Delays & Deferred Revenue 2. Unsustainable CapEx → No FCF 3. OpenAI Contagion/Backlog. the Speed bill directly addresses #1 and #2. But not #3 with OpenAI. The main fears affecting the biggest Neocloud/Datanceter providers like Oracle, Coreweave was their immense capex spend for a counterparty (OpenAI) that doesn't have the funding to commit to it's capex spend. But now, #3 is starting to be addressed with the new Amazon funding. - With a fresh $10 Billion and Amazon’s balance sheet backing the creator of ChatGPT, OpenAI's early commitments to Oracle and CoreWeave are now starting to be backstopped. - Downstream Impact: This directly derisks companies like $CRWV and $ORCL, who are building capacity for OpenAI. And by two hops, companies like $APLD or $CORZ that rely on Coreweave as a tenant. As Coreweave and Oracle are seen as the "sector leaders" this immediately changes sentiment across the whole Neocloud sector from $NBIS, $IREN, $CIFR, $WULF and others as well. 2. The HyperScaler AI capex wave ( $AMZN, $MRVL, Alchip): We've seen fears after $AVGO ASIC backlog about hyperscaler spending waning. And many related players tanked on the news. However, a key condition of this deal is OpenAI’s adoption of Amazon’s proprietary Trainium ASICs. This signals an aggressive scaling of non-Nvidia clusters. - Design & IP: Direct benefit to ASIC design partners like Marvell ( $MRVL ) and Alchip. - Custom silicon clusters require massive optical interconnects and HBM. This creates a new capex supercycle for photonics ( $AAOI, $LITE, $COHR ) and memory ( $MU, SK Hynix). - Foundries such as $TSM. and many more related companies involved in the buildout of hyperscaler ASICs. The only loser? Nvidia ( $NVDA ). Amazon is successfully using its massive balance sheet to force the leading LLM to diversify away from H100/Blackwell dependence and boosting the whole AI supply chain alongside it. The main takeaway is that the AI trade is funded by the richest companies in the world, such as $AMZN, and OpenAI is showing it can scale up its balance sheet to meet requirements by trading off equity. Go long on the AI sector.

Falling Knife or Dip Buy? What a brutal Friday for stocks after $ORCL and $AVGO earnings. Popular FinX names that dropped in just 1 day: $FRMI | -34.1% $SNDK | -15.89% $SEI | -15.3% $OKLO | -15.13% $MOD | -14.67% $ALAB | -14.31% $FLNC | -13.96% $LITE | -12.83% $GLXY | -11.73% $AAOI | -11.73% $AVGO | -11.43% $RMBS | -11.11% $CRWV | -10.06% $GLXY | -10.42% $EOSE | -9.73% $CIFR | -9.69% $APLD | -9.43% $WULF | -9.48% $BMNR | -9.17% $LGN | -8.86% $IREN | -8.79% $TSSI | -8.67% $NBIS | -6.99% I usually add more commentary on each stock, but it's been pretty incredible to watch. Things like $FRMI makes sense on losing tenants/funding but as for others. $NBIS is now lower than post Gov, $MSFT, and $META deals & $AVGO just had one of its largest drops in history even after $GOOGL TPU ramp. What are you watching or buying on Monday?

Broadcom [ $AVGO ] earnings results and its effect on the AI sector like $LITE and $NBIS: Broadcom's ER was "double beat" with $18.02B revenue (+28% Y/Y) and $1.95 EPS, beating consensus. But AVGO dropped -11.64% and brought down the AI sector. Is this a buying opportunity? Yes. Broadcom is seen as a hyperscaler ASIC proxy growth as companies like $AMZN Trainium, $MSFT Maia, and most importantly $GOOGL TPU V7 Ironwood are scaled through it. And by proxy companies like $ALAB (-13.2%), $CRDO (-5.11%), $LITE (-12.23%), $TSM (-3.71%), $COHR (-9.25%), and are direct beneficiaries of the TPU/Asic buildout and Broadcom as a company. There's three reasons why Broadcom fell and one why the market fell: For Broadcom, there's minor things such as tax rate changing EPS models or "margin compression" from accounting from just more custom AI chips than higher-margin software, but this is just accounting framing. (Similar to how $META dropped initially on one-time tax post-ER) For both Broadcom general market, it was backlog expectations. Everything cited above is all minor compared to expected growth of ASIC markets. Broadcom cited $73B in AI backlog for the next 18 months. And rumors of Antrophic and META buying billions of $GOOGL TPUs, people were implicitly expecting $80B+. However, the selloff represents a dislocation in price driven by algorithms and short-term AI Bubble sentiment rather than a fundamental breakage. This backlog quote was the MINIMUM CONTRACTUAL FLOOR of confirmed orders. Companies like $GOOGL, $AMZN, will likely continue ramping up ASIC orders and the market failed to discern this nuance. Analysts are expecting revenue conversion to be more front loaded, and that there should be less backlog beyond Q4 given the cycles, which gives a higher likely range of $55-60B+ for 2026 rather than $50B expected of the $73B. TLDR: The thesis regarding hyperscaler ASIC ramp to compete vs $NVDA dependency has not changed. $AVGO and other players like $COHR, Sk Hynix, $MU, $VRT, and $LITE all stand to benefit. It's not the best news regarding the revenue backlog, but it's misunderstood due to lead-time/order cycles and minimum floors. If anything, lower hyperscaler ASIC demand is beneficial to $NVDA and their ecosystem, but we've also seen $CRWV, $SMCI, $NBIS and $NVDA GPU/DC compute ecosystem drop over 5%+ today from an indiscriminate sell-off despite inverse correlation. This is just the typical "AI Bubble" cycle hitting again from misunderstanding. The widespread panic of AI stocks dropping 10-12% is a great buying opportunity.

@DigestingX I'm researching $AVGO earnings right now and ASIC demand spillover to photonics like $LITE! I wanted to add to my $LITE position since that was my lowest right now, so might be a buying opportunity as you mentioned.

Core portfolio is high conviction longs: $BTC, $RKLB, $HOOD, $NBIS, $ALAB, $TSM Probably moving $LITE and $CRCL to the core long port above, but they’re newer positions that I’m building up. Then short-mid term mix like $SNAP, $CIFR, $RDDT, $SMCI, $HIMS, $TE, $LTC, $KRUS, AMKR, $LITE, $FLY, $WLAC, $META, $AMZN, $TTD, and now $AAOI etc. I rotate between short-medium term holds A LOT. I used to post more day trading stuff but I ended up getting too many followers here, so wanted to switch to directional commentary. It’s hard to post position updates because I like to explain why I do things! I remember selling $IREN around $50-$60 or something and just got a bunch of hate comments for the next three weeks lol

Yeah I really, really like $LITE but it’s already priced in with a premium. I only have relatively small positions in $AAOI though just because of execution risk in case a hyperscaler drops purchase orders + competition from Jabil. That being said it’s priced as a small cap component manufacturer but has AI $MSFT Maia $AMZN trainium ramp and made in America as a great driver since it plays a critical part in the hyperscaler ASIC ecosystem. This is just a qualitative investment, off rough estimates like 30-35% margins and assumptions of beating projections due to hyperscaler ramp in 2026. The marketcap is small enough to make me an investor for medium term though.

I was actually looking into $AMZN Trainium benchmarks from a semianalysis post and at Amazon's supply chain. And some friends like @yianisz post about it earlier, so I decided to look deeper at it. But it has ~$4B spend from $AMZN as a backstop as they ramp up Trainium/Inferentia clusters, spend from $MSFT ASIC clusters, and we'll likely see more hyperscaler clients as the industry moves to 800g ramp. Mag7 dependency is incredibly rare coming from a $2.5B marketcap company lol. Downside + positive: Is vertically integrated (higher-margins), since it's lasers are builtin Texas. I see just incredible volume demand, moving forward but: the whole name of the game is execution since they actually have to build out the 800G/1.6T transceivers without messing up. I'm fully invested already in $AAOI already with relatively small-moderate position sizing for risk management (it's still a small cap with $2.5B MC). I still like $LITE a lot more, but a bit hard to cost average up on that when it's up 46% this month.

I entered $ALAB, $NBIS, $TSM, and $LITE because of Mag7 funneling revenue numbers into them. Lite uniquely because of its role in GOOGL TPU v7, AMZN Trainium v3/4, and NVDA Blackwell. But there's a new one I found out about. A small cap <$3B player that fits the thesis: Name - $AAOI A small cap photonics player, and one of the two photonics players I'm invested in: 1. Lumentum is uniquely positioned in every single supply chip deployment/ramp, as the Optical Circuit Switching technology is used in Blackwell, Trainium, and Ironwood as a "scale-across" type technology. $LITE wins no matter what. Hyperscaler ASIC vs. GPU as it's in the center of it all. 2. Applied Optoelectronics is more of the "scale-out" connectivity, for custom ASIC clusters like Trainium, Maia through 400G and 800G optical cables and transceivers. $AAOI wins no matter what as well given its role with AWS as a whale client for Trainium, and with MSFT Maia ASICs. The industry is going through a "supercycle" driven by the migration to 800G speeds and AAOI is in the center of it. On top of that, AAOI plays unique geopolitical angle, America first. Unlike many other companies that are fabless and export production elsewhere to Taiwan, Applied Optoelectronics makes their own lasers in Texas. US hyperscalers (specifically Amazon and Microsoft) are aggressively reducing reliance on Chinese supply chains for critical infrastructure and that helps AAOI’s ability to manufacture lasers at home. And we've seen another huge volume order from a "major hyperscaler" on its 800G data center transceivers. But AAOI trades like a distressed company; however, the implied revenue of its Amazon warrant agreement creates an asymmetric risk/reward profile on its 800G ramp in Q4 2025 and FY2026. AAOI seems structurally undervalued, given its role in the AI buildout and existing hyperscaler contracts. The markets are finally catching up to LITE, but it feels $AAOI is yet to begin, given its small market cap size but unique angle of a critical player to hyperscaler ASIC clusters and Made in America. The market is currently re-rating heavily with photonics players and assigning a heavy premium, yet AAOI is only up 2.20% this year and seems like it's just about to begin.

Post-Fed Interest Rate 25BPS cut. December 11th ratings: Strong Buy: $CRCL $COIN $AMKR $CRDO $IBIT $MSTR $AMZN $SMCI $TSM $TSSI Sk Hynix $SNAP Samsung Electronics $ALAB $META $NBIS $CIFR Buy: $KRUS $AVGO $NFLX $KRKNF $HIMS $FLY $OSS $TE $FLNC $LITE $COHR $RKLB $TTD $NVDA $CLS $GOOGL $RDDT $WULF $CRWV $IREN $GLXY $WLAC $MPWR Avoid $RGTI $PLTR $WMT $ETH $BMNR $TSLA $IONQ $ORCL $SLNH $OKLO Explanations: Today fed cut interest rates 25BPS as expected. This usually funnel liquidity into growth stocks and benefits small-medium caps that use debt the most (refinance with lower interest rates), such as Neoclouds like $NBIS and $CIFR. However, this coincides with Japan hiking, which might lead to carry trade unwind from last year's reload; but this is short term, fundamentals > volatility short term. Strong Buy Ratings: Circle - Massive drop mainly due to share unlock post IPO. However, rate cuts hurt their business model ~20% revenue cut from interest. That being said, we're seeing a massive growth in the stablecoin market, and I'm personally seeing huge early venture capital funding (a16z, sequioa, etc). being poured into stablecoin related companies such as Neobanks. We should see all of this funnel into more USDC printing, and the printer outweigh rate cuts. Coinbase - Same as Circle, they have 50% revenue sharing in terms of USDC. However, they also have their exchange on top, and rate cuts generally help riskier assets such as crypto (especially post drop Bitcoin sub 90k) Amkor - Benefits from Made in America shift to semis/fab. Credo - Dropped -16% last 5 days, and 8% today. Great recovery buy, don't see connectivity demand dropping from DC buildout. ALAB - Same thesis as CRDO IBIT (Bitcoin) - Always a great long, especially so at $93K Microstrategy (MSTR) - Benefits from Bitcoin recovery and did an analysis whether they would get liquidated or not. TLDR: no, we have another bitcoin halving event before they need to pay off interest, which was around 2029. Amazon - Hasn't moved an inch all year. Fundamentals improving, EOY helps E-commerce division. Custom chips, constellations, robotaxis, they're basically doing everything and market hasn't really rewarded their effort yet. Just a feeling we might see this outperform next 2 months. SMCI - Did a thesis post on this earlier, amazing recovery buy. It dropped on earnings due to shifting revenue backlog to next quarter, but markets aren't pricing in the fact they're growing 60% Y/Y forward revenue but trading at ~11 forward p/e or so. TSM - Backbone of the whole AI/semi buildout. We're seeing arguments about TPU vs. GPU, but TSM doesn't care. TSSI - Same thesis with SMCI, piggybacks off of Dell, just as a proxy we're seeing massive backlog from vendors such as IREN, and other neoclouds building out DCs 2026, and we should see this come into fruition next year. Sk Hynix - Apparently there's been rumors about uplisting to US markets, which should be a boost to liquidity. Also memory markets is just incredibly high demand from AI buildout. Snapchat - Just undervalued. $13B marketcap, ~1B+ quarterly revenue. NA DAU dropped 3% from last quarter but don't buy this for being the next FB. All they need to do is cut GCP costs and monetize memories (which they did) and we should see this re-rate 100%+ next year, especially with $400m+ in added revenue/equity from the Perplixty deal Samsung Electronics - People think of this as memory as well because it makes up a large part of their profit, but i see this as a potential next cash cow foundry play like TSM, as the 2nd largest player to soak up any max capacity overflow. META - One time tax selloff, was oversold. Now we finally see them create a frontier model (Avacado) if i remember correctly. So they can monetize the llama open source llm efforts they've been just blowing money on. They also cut their metaverse efforts, which should be a huge boost in proftiability. Nebius - Short term drag due to 25m share dilution. ATM is likely being offered. That being said once this finishes, insanely undervalued due to forward revenue/growth from both its DC business (7-9B ARR), and its 4 subsidaries that the markets dont price in (growing 100%+ Y/Y) CIFR - Short term drop due to Bitcoin prices (holding a lot on balance sheet), but not really affected by GPU depreciation arguments since they do colo models. Also backstopped by google, and they have contracts with Amazon, so fundamentally disrisked and one of the top buys in neocloud secotr. Buy Ratings: Running out of text space so will give a shorter TLDR Kura Sushi - Swing trade zoom out 5 year chart and you'll see what I mean every time it bottoms (around now). This never fails! Broadcom - Hyperscaler buildout, critical to TPU alongside Mediatek Netflix - 16% drop feels a bit unwarranted for the acquisition KRKNF - Great growing fundamentals and defensible market as an andruil supplier. HIMS - Share buyback program, usually sub $40 great buy/swing trade. Zava acqusition not being priced in and it's still growing. FLY - SpaceX $1.5T valuation should boost up the whole space sector. This was a 2026 play for medium lift. OSS - DD on this earlier potential andruil supplier. Otherwise, kind of undervalued at this MC anyway. TE - One of the few Murican energy infra, Solar. It's likely more commercial than Nuclear. FLNC - Same thesis with AI buildout + energy LITE - Pretty overextended right now, wouldn't chase. But long term benefits from being in the middle of both tpu ironwood + blackwell buildout COHR - Same with Lite, but seems like a secondary player. RKLB - Probably my favorite long. Pretty overvalued right now but can't help it due to SpaceX fomo. TTD - Thesis post earlier, just based on forward revenue numbers, it seems like a great recovery play. NVDA - TPU fears are a bit overblown, just look at backlog. CLS - TPU v7 ecosystem buy GOOGL - They sell TPUs like NVDA, growing robotoaxis market like waymo, gemini succesful. Just firing on all fronts. Reddit - Just a money printer like early day Robinhood. Made some thesis comments about RDDT growing in terms of acquisitions from FCF. Otherwise, they're here to stay and benefits from all gens using it (unlike snap which is earlier) WULF - Similar to CIFR. Rerating might happen depending on more info about the Anthropic buildout. CRWV - Terrible, terrible long. Good short term recovery buy. IREN - I would not put money into this if they kept buying GPUs to do AI cloud just due to dilution. but they might do colo and they have an immense amount of GW capacity so it's still promising. GLXY - Beneficary of DC Buildout. WLAC - Possible that they're SPAC ipoing this month. They did say Q4. MPWR - TPU v7 ecosystem buy Avoid RGTI - Quantum, no fundamentals/revenue to back it up PLTR - 449.01B market cap lol WMT - They're growing like 4% revenue a year, but trading at 40 p/e which is insane. ETH - Ethereum great network. However, there's no token burn and none of the revenue goes to token holders. Terrible investment, great developer tooling/ecosystem. BMNR - Ethereum proxy. TSLA - Kind of detached from fundamentals. But it's a bet on elon musk, robotaxis at scale, robotics. I personally just see this as overpromising, but we'll see. IONQ -Quantum, no fundamentals/revenue to back it up ORCL - Most of forward backlog is dependent on openai, which makes things incredibly uncertain/risky if openai falls to claude/gemini in market share. That being said, it's a good recovery buy right now, but long term it's risky. SLNH - This is the stock to be in if you want diluted to oblivion on their 2.8gw pipeline. OKLO - no fundamentals like quantum to back up mc at this moment, this likely years out to come into fruition.

@itsthesquonky Round the time I did supply chain research on TPU v7 for $LITE! Incredibly promising but a tad overextended right now https://t.co/QFojyOiXXP

Stock position updates: Sitting on high-conviction longs like $NBIS and writing options, relatively lax weekend. Minor position adds updates from last week: $LITE - $316.5 (+5.53%) -> ~$335.91 Lite benefits from $NVDA Blackwell + $GOOGL v7 TPU rampup $AMKR - $37.6 (+18.4%) ~$44.5 Benefits from US-policy regarding Fab with $TSM. $SMCI - ~$32.92 (+5.97%) ~$21.03B (60% Y/Y revenue growth going into next year, the 40% drop for quarter backlog delay was unwarranted). $TTD - $38.6 (+3.78%) ~$40.6 Haven't seen too much news aside from $CRWV raising another $2B and tanking other Neoclouds. Or the $108B Paramount bid drama for Warner. Probably going to cost average up on $AMKR, $SMCI, waiting on a deeper drops for $LITE.

I've actually posted a breakdown + talked about each individual stock up there before if you follow what I normally post. This is just a consolidated list from history. For example I posted a deeper dive on TPU v7 ironwood supply chain not too long ago ( $COHR, $AMKR, $LITE, $MPWR). And I post DD on neoclouds like $NBIS, $CIFR, quite often.

As of current prices, December 5th: The ideal AI portfolio for the LLM + TPU/GPU ramp would look like this: · 25% $NBIS · 15% $TSM · 12.5% $LITE · 10% $ALAB · 10% $SMCI · 10% $AMKR · 5% Samsung Electronics · 5% SK Hynix · 5% $CRDO · 5% $CLS · 5% $COHR · 5% $NVDA Calls · 2.5% $AVGO Calls · 2.5% $WLAC · 2.5% $MPWR · 2.5% $CIFR · 2.5% $IREN · 2.5% $TE · 2.5% $FLNC Just how I'd do it, 1.3X margin. I'm pretty confident in this cooking.

@ABC12D2 $LITE for exposure to TPU v7 ironwood ramp up

@lesantcho9306 Yep you were one of the early commenters about $LITE. Thanks! It remind me of the time @SCurveCapital kept telling me about $IREN at $10 or something.I finally bought in at $26 or something but just small positions lol. Should listen to the community more for sure

Yeah little sad I'm late to the $LITE party and it's ATHs right now. But if we look what happened to $NVDA 2022 to now, same could happen if TPU ends up becoming a dominant player in inference. and.. $LITE is directly correlated to TPU ramp up. Sadly didn't realize how vital it was to the ecosystem earlier. This is something I'm cost averaging shares with but it's a happy add to my portfolio.

Analysis of the $GOOGL TPU v7 Ironwood Suppliers. Here's the list of what comapnies are the most materially impacted by the Google's TPU buildout. + the TPU stock I'm taking a position on. [Critical] Design/IP: - Broadcom [ $AVGO ]: co-designs and implements Google’s TPU ASICs [Critical/High] Semiconductor Fab: - #1 Taiwan Semi [ $TSM ]: TPUv7 is fabbed at TSMC 3nm - #2 Samsung Electronics: Secondary memory & foundry partner [Critical/High] Memory: - #1 SK Hynix: HBM3E for TPUv7 Ironwood - #2 Samsung Electronics: ~TPUv7-specific reporting emphasizes SK hynix + Samsung. [High] Optical Networking: - Lumentum [ $LITE ]: Google uses extensively uses Optical Circuit Switching (OCS) - Coherent [ $COHR ]: OCS player but weaker [High] Power Management ICs: - Monolithic [ $MPWR ]: This is speculative that Vicor will be replaced by $MPWR, from earnings mentioning TPU [Medium] Thermal Management: - Vertiv [ $VRT ]: Vertiv supplies the CDUs that act as the heart of the liquid cooling system, pumping coolant to the cold plates on the TPU chips - Modine [ $MOD ]: More speculative that they provide provides the massive chillers and air handling units (AHUs) [Medium] Interconnects: - TTM Technologies [ $TTMI ], $ANET, Unimicron, Ibiden ______ The buildout of the Google TPU v7 "Ironwood" represents the construction of a parallel silicon ecosystem designed to break the monopoly of $NVDA GPU. The material impact is most concentrated in Broadcom (as the silicon architect and commercial vehicle), the Memory Complex (SK Hynix/Samsung), and the Optical/Power sectors (Lumentum/Vertiv) and was created from public evidence but is largely dependent on adoption, vendor shares, and competitive responses actually play out. From this supply chain research, I'm initiating a new position in $LITE, in the event the TPU becomes the dominant ASIC for inference. Lumentum is primary beneficiary of Google’s commitment to OCS and form the core of the "Apollo" OCS switches used in TPU pods. The ramping of TPU v7 clusters translates directly to unit volume for Lumentum’s optical switch modules. And because OCS is a bespoke architecture unique to Google’s hyperscale approach, Lumentum faces less commoditization pressure here than in the standard transceiver market. However all companies in this supply chain are set to benefit if the TPU v7 scales up from Anthropic, Meta, Apple, and others buying the $GOOGL ASIC.