Sure... Random train of thoughts on markets now, optics like $LITE / memory + $IREN / Anthropic. On Memory: - Demand visibility on $MU / Samsung / SK Hynix extend into 2030-2031. Samsung has LTAs covering 70% of their capacity into 2031 (likely with SK Hynix type price floors)... and their operating profit is already absurd. There's a consensus that shortage in 2027 will be much more severe than 2026... Even $SNDK expends gross margins to exceed 80% entering 2030. You're going to hear Acer and other CEOs that want memory prices to go down cite bear cases like CXMT/YMTC, and Chinese players. But just looking at supply procurement that $NVDA is doing + hyperscalers, demand visibility is absurd for the next 5 years. And by that time, cumulative FCF coming in from these take/pay + pricing floor contracts might exceed some of their entire marketcaps so it feels like there's some baseline. Near-term is always volatile (IV dropped a ton across $EWY to $DRAM to $MU), so people with call options likely got nuked, along with underlying prices. But if Samsung is 3x 2027E, has 5 year LTAs with 70% of capacity committed from hyperscalers, and price floors, it's kinda hard to see these names suffer a sustained crash... For optics: - $LITE is literally sold out into 2029, starting discussions into 2030. With demand visibility lasting into 2031… with hyperscalers largely funding the capacity buildout. Their 2028 Greensboro fab expansion was ~$5B in UHP laser capacity revenue alone, yet it’s basically allocated toward $NVDA (50%+ with options for more) and co from channel checks. Existing supply chain bottlenecks are extremely severe as optical content/XPU skyrockets entering 2027-2028. So everything from DSPs/TIAs, photodiodes, lasers, InP/SOI substrates, wafers (epi, SOI, etc) are expected to go brrr. And what does that imply to anyone else with enormous amounts of capacity coming online like $AAOI + $SIVE + $MTSI capacity expansion in 2027? Or other players like Sumitomo / Furukawa? But again it's not quite the same situation as memory since the BOM % is extremely low in a cluster... If micron/samsung raised another 2000% hyperscalers would go bankrupt. But doing that for InP substrates seems possible. Or a 100% increase on CW laser content. I actually thought $LITE was overvalued at $100B+ MC, relative to capacity expansion on your smaller optical players to their respective MCs. So I chose to position accordingly (But lumentum does deserve premiums for demand visibility). For the companies leading the charge like $NVDA / $AVGO / $MRVL: - Nvidia has 70% forward revenue growth FY2028 which is supply constrained growth. - Broadcom 100% Y/Y for 2027/2028 which is also supply constrained growth. - Marvell FY2031 upgraded guidance to $70B-$90B from $46B analyst projections... They all seem to be very happy.... and read through on demand for next 2-3 years is enormous (also echoing what $INTC CEO said today on the panel with $AVGO CEO). So you have overwhelming growth on memory + photonics + from the leaders... But the nuance is not everything in the AI supply chain get the same economic benefit. HBM/Laser/CPU/MLCC and other players in the bottlenecks look to be printing money. And seem to be the largest beneficiaries of the current bottlenecks. Test players are also getting price hikes + capacity allocated by players like $NVDA, but economic impact seems a tad lower than other players since forward P/E for many I modeled were still in the 45x+ range even if you hiked prices like 10-30%. As for capex intensive players... there's some like $IREN ($25-30B for 2027) that despite a deal with Anthropic ended up dropping. I don't think markets seem to appreciate players spending a lot of money + ongoing financing (think they're like halfway through their $6B ATM). Just some hopium for $IREN investors, $NBIS also signed a deal with $META at the start of the year (but markets didn't care at all, since Nebius dropped to ~$70-80 at the lowest point?). But did 6 months later, as the time to revenue inflection gets closer and you're past the ATM/capex window, markets would likely care more. I don't think it's irrational but at the same time, the fundamentals have improved from Mirantis acquisition to others. I also think it was known for awhile it was either OpenAI/Anthropic from CEO comments earlier too? But either way to be a more risk-off environment where funds seem to be rotating to larger names as a flight to safety. $CRWD / $PLTR as just two example, but my take is that the valuations of these rotations are reaching clown levels. And that certain AI supply chain beneficiaries in comparison are undervalued now. I was thinking markets would just rotate to names that are extremely profitable like Samsung or names that have <2X P/E, so it was surprising to see $KOSPI and some legacy memory players get sold off today. Since all of this is colliding with uncertainty about sht macro environments and renewed sustainability concern of AI capex/commitments from frontier labs like OpenAI/Anthropic from due to that FT piece recently. I've always been sounding the alarm about the contractual backlog OpenAI has with $CBRS, $MSFT, $ORCL and others earlier in the year. But OpenAI did just raise $122B or so , so I don't quite think they're at risk of going down anytime soon. I also don't think overall capex can just exponentially go up, but even if it stalls / hovers around a certain point or even drops... Capex toward certain areas like optics will still explode as hyperscalers fight over allocations when CPO scale up comes about, but might drop in others where more capacity comes online like test or DRAM. So it's a lot more nuanced than capex down = everything down or vice versa. I also slightly agree with community agreements that open weight models wouldn't lessen demand on AI infrastructure (otherwise $NVDA wouldn't be funneling funds into Reflection), but all the contractual obligations that Anthropic has might get messy if their models/company get cannibalized. Either way, I'd expect some of these frontier lab valuations to likely compress but I do think Jensen knows what he's doing though to avoid contagion. But basically: - Extremely difficult market now, can't just throw money at any AI supply chain company like $GLW and expect it to go up. There's cause for concern of rate hikes mixed with financing per $AVGO CEO but not to the point you just blindly sell off everything. Also I think markets are stupid and ties baskets together so that leads to mispricing + individual buying opportunities with certain chokepoints too. If capacity + demand is visible and forward p/e compresses like $AAOI to single digits off hundreds or thousands of percent growth from hyperscalers off $471m transceiver revenues and hundreds of thousands of monthly ELSFP capacity. Or $SIVE coming online with 100M+ laser capacity + multiple foundries with ASP hikes on lasers. I wouldn't lump them into other AI supply chain names in IP like $RMBS or others. My take is that AI supply chain beneficiaries with closer inflection points, demand visibility, and forward P/E compressing due to economic leverage would likely outperform medium term despite current volatility. TLDR: - Memory strongest risk/adjusted return with LTAs + pricing floors extending to 2030's + buybacks. - My opinion is that optical supercycle for 2027-2028 with CPO/NPO is going to look absurd relative to capacity coming online of smaller suppliers. - Overwhelming fundamentals/growth colliding with sht macro + media scares - Markets are stupid and groups things in baskets and sells them all off together or buys overvalued names, creating short/long opportunities I'd give a prayer to people on short term options given underlying drop + IV decline, but there could be a reversal... who knows. Most valuable thing right now is time.

Woooow... $LITE CEO went out on Bloomberg today and stated: Lumentum is "effectively sold out through nearly 2029". From our perspective, "Completely Sold Out, there's no end in sight". With demand visibility from hyperscalers that carries them out into 2030, 2031. The implications of these statements are enormous for photonics and remaining laser suppliers with capacity coming online like $SIVE, Sumitomo Electric, to $AAOI. What a crazy bottleneck that's unfolding.

$AAOI is... finally... done... With their $600m ATM program, turns out it's ~$105.36 average. I do think AOI outperforms $LITE, as long as they stop filing these ATM programs. Just due to their sheer magnitude of ramp with $471m/month transceiver revenue + 400K/month ELSFP coming up.

$LITE CEO: "Next year with the advent of CPO and NPO in 2027, our estimates are that we'll be undershipping demand... By 70%. Literally 70%. So we can only supply 30%. And this has caught us by supply. By 2029-2030, we get to some level of balance." Source: Global Photonics Economic Forum Day 1 (7:57:15 - 7:58:00) Any other players with laser capacity coming online are probably going to get more market attention soon.

"Potential FCC rules on optical transceivers more likely to come at 3.2T" - $LITE, $AAOI, $COHR, $SIVE. Morgan Stanley met with Washington officials: - Restrictions would likely start at 3.2T modules made in China (800g/1.6T would be left alone) - Potential restrictions would likely keep laser market tight (combining US DSPs + lasers could meet the 65% US value threshold per MS) - Chinese modules could qualify if 65% of bill of materials is US content. Chinese modules using US DSPs and lasers are already near that level - Analysts expect the positive impact on laser pricing... to be more important than any broad redistribution of transceiver market share. - Analysts don't expect this to bottleneck hyperscaler AI buildouts, they name InP substrate supply as the key variable to watch (hello $AXTI ) TLDR: Component suppliers in general are really positive. Like $SMTC probably winner here for TIAs/drivers (I don't think this was listed), maybe $MXL for DSPs too. $AAOI another large beneficiary. $SIVE is high-key alpha for laser beneficaries since they have "tremendous capacity" coming online, and that points to US foundries (they haven't formally disclosed location). Since previous slideshows show 2 US foundries 1 Taiwan foundry (Win Semi) in terms of their capacity partnerships. And it's process of elimination. From CIOE Channel checks it does look like they're starting to work with Chinese pluggable players, (so they'd avenues moving forward as US supply chain component beneficiaries). Of course $LITE / $COHR would be happy. TLDR: Western supply chains for Lasers / DSPs / TIAs / others are already bottlenecked but qualified capacity becomes even more important.

Everyone is asking "Where is Serenity" or "Who is Serenity". But nobody is asking... "How is Serenity"? I do read things from $AMD $8.2B acquisition of World Labs... but feeling pretty sick right now, so taking a little break. I remember saying physical AI + world models would major shift way back when, so maybe I should have invested in private companies at the time... Apart from that... other interesting news: - Some channel checks from ECOC was that $NVDA apparently secured 50% of $LITE Greensboro UHP laser capacity? And possibly contracts that allow them to secure the remaining capacity per Barclays. That's $5B in lasers (annual capacity)... so it's hilarious to see Nvidia go out and bottleneck the rest of the industry by doing this. But this just puts more strategic value on other merchant laser suppliers + more visibility for Lumentum. It's kinda game theory over allocation, since if you secure all the HBM, lasers, and others it inadvertently makes it much harder for competitors to scale their programs. - Then there's your massive $150B Nvidia authorized buybacks (just look at $AAPL when they did buybacks..) They're printing too much. - What's also interesting is that Samsung Electro-Mechanics is expanding their FC-BGA substrate capacity today... but customers are the one funding this. I also remembered $MRVL in SEC filings cited large body substrates as one of the core bottlenecks of their program (alongside $TSM sole source dependencies). So they also went out and did some other expansion agreements with related companies like AT&S recently. - OpenAI delaying Astra-6.1 October release over safety concerns just now. Nvidia also happened to launch an AI safety platform. I don't think this is meaningfully bearish that the models are just getting 2 good.

So update from $LITE + Win Semi ( $SIVE ) foundry: Lumentum in a meeting with Stifel at ECOC 2026 stated: - $NVDA Spectrum-6 CPO UHP demands increased materially. - NPO as larger than CPO, with multi-wavelength external lasers lifting ASPs (Sivers offers multi wave length DFB arrays, read through on higher valued products) - Demand for UHP lasers continues to exceed supply Just a status update in terms of how the optical bottleneck is going (laser prices going up, demand exceeds supply). Digitimes also reported today Win Semi ( $SIVE foundry ) was expanding capacity for CW lasers. - "CW products... are expected to gradually emerge in the second half of 2026", with meaningful revenue contribution likely coming in 2027 and 2028. - Win has strengthened inventory management for InP substrates while moving toward 6-in InP wafers for ongoing process testing. Currently relies on Tier-1 International suppliers. - Many of this was spent on DUV tools from $ASML but (Win Semi's orders spanned machinery, equipment, and fab engineering work) So that answers a lot of questions about Sivers' partner "how is this company securing InP substrates", "4in vs 6in", "production timing" TLDR: - NPO > CPO (per Lite), multi-wavelength lasers going brrr for prices - demand > supply (continuation) - Not sure why people have been bear posting Win Semi when turns out they have everything needed to mass produce CW lasers.

I guess I need to start calling $SNDK or $LITE Super Intelligence stocks. Thanks Trump. https://t.co/x7tJcKjfsc

While everyone is focused on Bessent/He Lifeng talks today. Or $LITE / $MRVL / $SIVE at ECOC optical conference... I'm just curious why my followers can leave 2K+ comments if I post in Chinese... But if I share something in English: I only get 50 comments. Feels bad anon

Reminiscent of $NVDA w/ $LITE + $COHR: Foxconn is now considering joint investments to avoid upstream material shortages. Foxconn Interconnect Chairman identifies CW lasers and fiber as the biggest bottleneck in photonics. Very interesting to see these two themes reiterated across industry commentary. Almost like a certain Anime character on X was right about CW laser bottlenecks.

$SIVE has its own piece in Digitimes btw, which is appreciated industry recognition outside of Sweden. I think Sivers 100M+ CW DFB laser capacity buildout forced the industry to revisit its models and generated considerably more coverage. BC it puts Sivers into T1 laser capacity convo w/ $COHR, Sumitomo, Furukawa, $AVGO, Landmark, and $LITE if it executes on its ramp. But outside of that, CIOE 2026 channel checks were really meaningful since the community found Sivers is working with Chinese pluggable players + setting up an office locally. I'm getting dejavu to the time I pointed out $SIVE + $JBL at OFC for their 1.6T LRO, but nobody believed the link until there was an actual press release. Anyway, proud to see this little company growing up

Yep, I'm personally high conviction on the AI trade (especially photonics/memory) despite macro. - $NVDA gave forecasts for $1.3T hyperscaler capex ($100B+ above BofA analyst expectations) - $SPCX Wells Fargo forecasts are ~$263B for 2027. - $127B spend in 2027 for Anthropic/OpenAI model training + inference from internal investor documents (WSJ). - Even the Pentagon (US gov) is looking to fund the AI buildout, with $5B potentially into Fluidstack. What sectors do I think capex flows hit the hardest? Photonics + Memory. Trendforce for example est. DRAM and NAND to be 68% of hyperscaler capex in 2027. So when all that memory procurement spend hits the balance sheets of $MU, $SNDK, Samsung, $SKHY with 70-80%+ margins. I don't think these companies care about short term macro scares. And when your leading memory companies are all allocating capacity for DDR5/HBM or high end memory, with little visibility on legacy memory supply coming online. What does that say about the durability of ESMT/Etron/Winbond and others? And when your optical content/GPU goes up for rubin ultra + $META / $GOOGL TPU v9, etc. Alongside TAM eg. $131.4 billion (+81% revision) for 2027 optical module forecasts. Who benefits from supplying all that lasers during a shortage other than $LITE / $SIVE / $AAOI / $COHR? I think the overwhelming fundamentals + growth of some of the AI sector companies will outperform macro.

Citibank TMT: "lasers and optical fibers are being positioned as the "next HBM." I've been talking about lasers like $LITE / $AAOI since 2025... and architectural shifts toward CW, ahead of the current industry consensus. And fully agree with Lightmatter/Citi. Just for reference: For lasers: $LITE / $SIVE / $AAOI / $COHR / $MTSI / Furukawa / Sumitomo are your better known ones. For fiber: $GLW / Furukawa / Fujikura / Sumitomo are your more well-known exposure (obviously a lot more in the supply chain) *disclosure, personal exposure to theme With added commentary that: "Tight supply conditions will support a scarcity premium for these assets." We're already seeing price hikes with lasers as seen with $SIVE channel checks at CIOE 2026 Shenzhen today + $LITE commentary from earnings. So I think the 2027–2028 photonics supercycle will look a lot like memory did in 2025–2026. Especially as optical content/GPU-ASIC goes up significantly per Goldman Sachs revised estimates...

Glad $SIVE is attending CIOE Shenzen and hope my followers can go too! If you want my read on current landscape: -> Chinese pluggable makers like CIG (剑桥科技) are facing severe shortages in 70mW-200mW lasers. If you look at filings from CIG, they claim "substantially longer delivery times and deposits to secure capacity” along with statements of shortages. -> Innolight and others were also looking to secure multiple laser suppliers with LTAs recently from their filings. On the US side of things: -> $COHR was a major merchant laser supplier before, but largely withdrew from the market after rerouting them internally. "I do not see any time in the near future where we would be selling Indium Phosphide lasers externally." From their ER transcript. And then likely turned into a buyer in an already supply constrained market... where "over the long term, we will have some portion of our datacom transceivers that will be supported by external sources." -> $AAOI not really known to be a merchant supplier, but said same thing about laser capacity being rerouted towards transceivers. And having to turn away customers for lasers. -> For $LITE, they still supply lasers but stated: "We are commanding a significant price premium" for CW lasers $LITE Wupen Yuen: "wherever they can get the laser source, they will use that solution to support their build-out." So hinting... about customers just finding anything available due to shortages. -> $MTSI has no meaningful capacity online now, but they're already stating customers are approaching them with urgency to secure CW laser supply. -> Trendforce reported $AMD and hyperscaler CSPs are aggressively going out to secure CW laser supply to avoid future bottlenecks. And then you have Europe... Where $SIVE is coming online with "tremendous capacity available now" from their foundry partners. With 100M+ laser capacity Q4 2027, and maybe if you look at their 2:1 ratio implying ~200M targeted laser capacity from external foundries. They also happen to offer the same power range (70mW, 100 mW, 200mW) as the ones currently in shortage by pluggable makers in China. There's a massive void to fill, so this dramatically increases the chance of converting customers. (esp. Supported by Lumentum statements) My speculation was that some of the 6 active pluggable engagements were from China? Which is why they're attending the conference. So to any of my Chinese followers, maybe you can ask a few questions like: - if Europe is a laser source geography, if Innolight/Eoptolink/Cambridge are considering $SIVE. - if they're seeing ASP hikes in lasers, and what CW products are hardest to obtain If you are attending CIOE in Shenzhen!

I'll let you decide that for yourself since that was an illustrative laser revenue modeling off $SIVE 100M CW DFB laser/year target. But... do you want to know the main reason I like laser companies so much? They don't just have to stay laser companies... just look at $LITE! If we look at Lumentum's previous Cloud Light acqusition (pluggables)... it enabled: - more than a 5X+ expansion in served opportunity inside DCs. From Lumentum's OFC deck: - ELS expansion from UHP laser chips was 2X TAM opportunity.. But selling lasers alone... just from one UHP laser fab was $5B in projected revenue capacity (their fab expected to ramp in early 2028), if we apply similar 55-65% CPO laser margin quotes by $AAOI. So lasers by itself is very profitable, and despite industry capacity expansion, there would likely still be a demand imbalance for lasers. Isn't that pretty cool? So it's not quite just modeling component value for certain types of companies since they can keep growing into other products. And you have new overlapping cycles eg. NPO/CPO/1.6T pluggables increasing demand. So I'd personally assign higher premiums for laser companies over types of suppliers that stay in the same layer.

Got curious and decided to track which thesis of mine were still up 100%+ YTD after the recent drawdown: 1. $AXTI - InP substrates 2. $NBIS - Neoclouds 3. $MU - Memory 4. $INTC - Foundry 5. $LITE - Photonics 6. $IQE - Epiwafers 7. $AAOI - Photonics 8. $GDRZF - Venezuela 9. $AEHR - Machines 10. $EWY (volatility + underlying) 11. $RPI - AI orchestration 12. $SOI - SIlicon Photonics Substrates 13. $SNDK - Memory 14. $SIMO - Memory 15. $MRVL - ASICs 16. Nanya - memory 17. Unimicron - substrates 18. $ARM - CPUs 19. $SIVE - Photonics From H1 2026, around 19 names across several themes up 100%+ still from the selection of winners. Since many like $TSEM / $HPS.A / $LPK / $ALRIB fell out of the range. (obviously not all are green like Shunsin / $XFAB and disappointed by performance). Regardless, glad a lot of my ideas turned out decently, rather than just being known for one like $AXTI. To the point the Chinese community gave my investing style a name "Perilla Leaf Theory". Again not too sure if my new ideas replicate this performance again in H2 2026 or 2027... For H2, my new thesis was on $CCXI for humanoids/downstream physical AI shift and ESMT for DDR2/DDR3/legacy memory. But I'll keep sharing my core ideas and thought process for free so people can poke holes or debate it until things get validated.

China reportedly halts some rare earth shipments to US. Not a new blanket ban, or any mention of specific rare earths. But… if I had to guess, Japan is usually a decent indicator of what’s actively important since Japan: - “sources virtually all of its dysprosium and terbium from China.” - gallium, dysprosium, terbium and yttrium from China to Japan all stood at “zero” in June. - Shin-Etsu Chemical has reportedly suspended acceptance of new orders for magnets containing dysprosium. - Global magnet producer Proterial had received no export licenses for Chinese dysprosium as of last month The Reuters piece mentioned yttrium, gallium, terbium, indium phosphide, and tungsten as historical examples (doesn’t say what’s being targeted now). On a side note, $LYC.AX is becoming one of the most important alternatives, as Japan has locked up 75% of Lynas’s medium/heavy rare-earth output. (8 tons of dysprosium + terbium in Q1) Something fun I also read is that Japan’s deep sea resource is enormous (est. at 16 million tons of rare earth rich mud, but commercialization is post-2028) But in the meantime, China seem to be choking off feedstock that would materially affect Japan. Since you’ve already seen the WF6 Japanese industry stressed from tungsten related halts. And indium/others earlier this year that is used to make InP substrates from Sumitomo/JX. But still gradually allowing exports directly eg. $AXTI -> $LITE to allow US/China trade to continue, kinda disrupting that from time to time, then using that as leverage. It’s interesting since Japan has so many different monopolies like ABF, so we’ll see if they do anything back. But if I had to give a prediction, it does look like the US has a countdown timer until China becomes self-sufficient on semiconductors. TLDR: - rare earth disruption to US - China actively targeting Japan for upstream feedstock (which goes to Us supply chains), probably want to focus on that - many many second/third order effects from disruptions - we’ll see what US/Japan wants to do back, but supply chain wars are being fought upstream.

This is the correct response when looking at $SIVE >100m CW DFB extraordinary capacity disclosure. To give some context, Trendforce July data cites global CW/EML capacity is roughly 608.4M/year (~50.7M monthly units annualized). With $AVGO, $LITE, and Sumitomo making up ~335m/year combined. By Q4 2027, it's likely a lot of these players will significantly expand capacity again, with broadcom citing 3x Y/Y growth. (also capacity not being 1:1 since many are allocated to EML or UHP CWs, etc). But this capacity target would place Sivers in global Tier 1 laser supplier category. With possibly low double digits global laser market share if you factor in their hybrid 2:1 manufacturing model. This new disclosure is very exciting coming from a conservative company. And sheds more light on why the $MRVL SVP cited Europe as a major geography when talking about laser supply chain sourcing.

$MRVL SVP and CTO of Optical Engineering Radha Nagarajan, at Semicon Taiwan: 1. Names Europe/Japan for laser supply sourcing as examples for SiPH modules. Very interesting that Marvell's SVP had Europe in mind when giving examples of laser supply sourcing for SiPH modules. I can't really name any notable public EU merchant laser suppliers other than $SIVE. Japan I can namedrop a few like Sumitomo/Furukawa etc. Maybe I'm reading too much into the geography, but a lot of US players like $LITE / $COHR / $AAOI are redirecting laser capacity internally, so it's interesting that the US wasn't mentioned. 2. Silicon photonics, high-speed drivers, amplifiers and DSPs come from other suppliers, with final integration taking place in Taiwan Makes sense, with $TSM COUPE / $ASX / ShunSin, and others. 3. Nagarajan appears to say NPO could arrive first around late 2027–2028, with full CPO continuing afterward. Good to hear more about commercialization timelines. $LITE similarly sees NPO around late 2027-H1 2028, while expecting CPO laser shipments in H2 2027 ahead of CPO scale up deployments in 2028. Revenue from upstream suppliers usually hits a bit earlier. 4. $MRVL on Google's TPU program vs. $AVGO / Mediatek and others. "Hyperscalers are seeking greater supply-chain diversification. If Google selects Marvell for a particular AI-chip segment, that does not mean it will stop working with MediaTek or Broadcom". Guess he's just trying to emphasize pie keeps growing for ASIC suppliers, nothing really too new. 5. All of Marvell's advanced ICs and ASICs are manufactured at TSMC, making the foundry central to the broader architecture. $TSM backbone of AI as usual. TLDR: - Very odd Marvell's SVP highlights Europe for laser sourcing, given how small a pool for merchant suppliers there is... - NPO volume looks late 2027, CPO after that. Upstream optical suppliers should start seeing revenue earlier

$TSM Vice President of Advanced Packaging: "Foundries can scale up the optical engine, but the real bottlenecks to large scale deployment lie elsewhere... Including lasers, optical fiber, fiber-optic connectors, and test" (UDN) Just some bucket ideas: Lasers: $LITE, $SIVE, $COHR, LandMark (3081), LuxNet, Sumitomo, Furukawa Optical fiber / FAU: Foci, Browave, $GLW, Sumitomo Fiber Optic / CPO Connectors: BizLink, $GLW , Fujikura, Nextronics, COXOC CPO testing: MPI (6223), Advantest, $FORM, Msscorps, $KEYS, Chroma (disclosure: exposure to theme above, individual names not named by TSMC) There are others I like as well, such as ShunSin, which now has explicit TSMC COUPE exposure but probably belongs under a different category like packaging/integration. eg. "Foxconn unit ShunSin confirms TSMC COUPE partnership" I don't think there's anything too new vs. H1, aside from ongoing news (eg. FAU looks like there will have a demand imbalance in 2027, from a report last week). But it's helpful to reiterate overall beneficiaries from time to time...

Just some random ideas from Elon’s post: $AAON - Chillers / liquid cooling $NVT - Cooling $MOD - Chillers / Cooling $IESC - Wiring $MTRS - chillers $JCI - chillers $HPS.A - Transformers (disclosure I own positions in this) $PRY.MI - networking/wiring(fiber) $CRDO / $AAOI (same) / $LITE / $COHR - networking Since Elon Musk cited: - transformers - wiring - liquid cooling - massive chillers + complex networking As the point of failure for AI compute buildout. Which is “harder than finding power”

Just my final recap on thoughts + fundamentals of $SIVE from ER: Pluggables (1.6T Ramp) for 2027: - $JBL (1.6T LRO, confirmed) Orders H1 2027, Ramp H2 2027 -> -> Likely multiple hyperscaler customers - 3 pluggable makers (evaluation) - 3 pluggable makers (supply assessment) Reference Design for likely H2 2027–28+: - $GFS (Globalfoundries) SCALE (confirmed)) -> -> Likely $AMD and other hyperscalers as CPO customers External Light Sources / Optical Engines for 2027: - $POET (confirmed) -> -> Lumilens / hyperscaler end users - O-Net (confirmed) -> -> Massive ODM/OEM for Hyperscalers + Asia - Likely $AEVA (mapping) -> -> supplying to OE -> hyperscalers / lidar - SemiNex (confirmed) Optical I/O for 2028: - Ayar Labs (confirmed) -> -> Likely $AMD, ALchip, and hyperscaler ASIC program end users + $NVDA NVLink - $MRVL Celestial (potential customer from 2023-2024 disclosures) - Lightmatter (potential customer from 2023-2024 disclosures) - Lightelligence (potential customer from 2023-2024 disclosures) Then potentially $AAPL for 2028 for next-generation wearable updates and other programs from TFLN with Lightium. In terms of capacity allocations: - Win Semi - 1 other foundry (with tremendous allocations) during an InP CW DFB laser shortage. These are all on-going developments/qualifications since Sivers is targeting next-generation SiPH + CW with 1.6T and CPO for 2027-2028. Especially as Goldman Sachs models the CPO opportunity going from effectively near-zero today to ~$91B TAM by 2028. However my criticisms were: => Main focus was not on communicating economic scale of 2027-2028 optical ramps to Western audiences. => Legal vagueposts around NASDAQ listing should be dropped, and clear direction should be set + executed faster on. =>Too much focus was put on defending smaller current revenue/TTM revenue/pipeline conversion (allspace, Tachyon.) relative to future qualifications/partner size/capacity/potential. $SIVE needs to position themselves as a forward looking, global hypergrowth optical company supplying lasers to hyperscaler programs. And not let the narrative get dominated by backward looking metrics. And as Morgan Stanley put it... "Key [CPO] participants include … $LITE, $COHR, and Sivers laser supply". I'm personally a happy $SIVE shareholder for high-beta exposure to the next 2027-2028 optical shift with 1.6T/CPO.

It’s been a little disappointing to see a pattern with some people I've interacted with on X: - try to engage with the same audience, then quickly move toward aggressively monetizing it - get upset when I choose not to participate in or amplify paid groups - throw out personal or illogical attacks and try to reframe that as simply disagreeing over fundamentals When I first joined X, a lot of finance content revolved around watches/private jets + options, paywalled communities promising the "secrets of Wall Street," and squiggly-line charts. One of the things I've wanted to do differently is publish my research and reasoning openly, for everyone. I think this definitely resonated with folks given my follower growth. But of course, this growth can also create friction with people whose business models rely on using X to funnel audiences into paid services or expensive paywalls. My subscription has been $1 for months and will stay at the minimum, despite claims at the beginning I would raise it to $100. All of my core theses are published on the main timeline for free. I could put substantially more behind a paywall. I just don't want to. I just prefer sharing the ideas openly and letting everyone decide for themselves. Many ideas have worked out well: $AXTI, $NBIS, $AEHR, $MU, $INTC, $EWY, $MRVL, $LITE, $RPI, $IQE, $SOI, $TSEM, $ARM, $COHR, and a lot more. Others ran into unexpected industry delays, like $LPKF with glass substrates and Auros with hybrid bonding. Some are still playing out into 2027/2028, including $SIVE, Foci, Shunsin, $CCXI, $XFAB and the broader CPO/humanoid themes. Some are brand new like Etron/ESMT for DDR2/DDR3. And many like $JBL to Murata to $MXL, I just share for fun to see if the idea is right. Not every idea will be right. That's part of research. But I'd much rather have an X where people openly publish the thesis and reasoning so everyone can learn from it. Than one where information increasingly disappears behind $100 paywalls or becomes diluted with engagement-bait noise. Hopefully I can help create a new culture on X rather than amplify the old one.

If I had to be critical of $SIVE earnings: 1. Management underweighted the two disclosures that matter most. -> 6 pluggable engagements -> Foundry capacity (during an industry bottleneck) That's the most important part of the call and should have been the focus to provide economic scale of them. But we got 2-3 sentences about it. And it shouldn't take an Anime avatar on X to talk most about the implications of those. 2. CFO needs retraining or bring on a new one. The lawyer like answers were infuriating to listen to as a shareholder. Even I got pissed off with this statement: "we will evaluate the timing and decide whether the conditions are right to move forward at that particular time." It should be a 100% given by now they file for dual listing to escape hostile Swedish markets. Shareholders didn't fund a future growth type company to hear lawyer-like answers. Again, this was probably one of the worst answers the CFO could have gave and there needs to be firm commitment along with faster timelines. 3. $70M should have gone toward M&A and dual listing. -> Brutally honestly speaking, it's a waste of capital to focus on hybrid manufacturing at this stage and I was disappointed to hear this during this timeframe. It's eventually needed but with 2 foundry suppliers -> You have a ton of new capital and large marketcap. Use it to pull $AVGO style acquisitions of Cloud Light style IP for pluggables or optical engines. Lumilens went from 0 -> $5.5B in 2 years and now with hyperscaler engagements. Sivers should expand out of the laser chokepoint as fast as possible and not stay just a component vendor. And most of all, who cares about competing with customers? If a customer says: "if you do pluggables, we'll go with other players for lasers" who?? $LITE / $COHR / $AAOI reroutes their lasers to internal usage. Lot of your Asian players already allocated. Abuse the current bottleneck as much as possible because there's almost no qualified choices left. And I'm certain all the partners are trying to vertically integrate upward toward the laser level too and compete. If there was a new OE/pluggable accusation attempted during the Q2 time frame, things would have been a lot different. _ TLDR: $SIVE should aim to be the next $LITE and blitzscale like a Silicon Valley company. Use that $70m capital to move faster H2, and at the bare minimum finish readiness then. And expect NASDAQ listing to be finished H1 2027. Not "evaluation" at that timeframe. And use the capital + equity to expand downward into optical engines/ELS/optical transceivers using your equity valuation, and buy a Celestial/Ayar/Cloud Lite type startup. As for the wording of the call, markets care about economic value of the foundry allocation + 6 pluggable players, not other business segments. $SIVE has been extremely conservative to date, but they need to speed up and communicate to forward looking US/Int shareholders. Not geared toward local Swedish audiences who care about Q2/TTM revenue. Otherwise they'll be treated like an Asian component supplier and eventually be valued like an EU one.

When retail piles into influencer names and then asks me to chart them, it has often marked a temporary top. Examples include: $MTPLF in 2025 $IONQ, $RGTI, $QUBT, $QBTS in 2025 $GLD and $SLV in Feb 2026 $SIVE, $LITE, $AAOI, $AXTI, $SLNH, $WYFI and $COHR a few months ago in 2026 Guess which sectors they’re asking for now? Simplicity is always the key. You don’t need to own multiple winners. Owning more names does not mean better returns. @HeidingOut @blondebroker1 @cantonmeow @matthughes13

Here's the angle I'm looking at $SIVE at: Companies/CSPs have been going out of their way way to lock up any qualified CW laser capacity for optical transceivers. So now, Sivers is coming into the industry with: - Large capacity from Win Semi - "tremendous capacity that is available now" from a new foundry (likely qualifications since 2024) since it's engaged "for a while" And what excited me from this earnings was the "6 pluggable/module" engagements (which is an enormous amount). The nuance I'm reading is: - $COHR said it sees no near term ability to sell InP lasers externally because internal transceiver demand consumes all available - $AAOI said the same about consuming laser capacity internally (wasn't a major merchant supplier before though). - $LITE has been bottlenecked and been buying lasers off the open market Your previous merchant players rerouted laser capacity internally. So a lot of the bigger names (eg. Eoptolink/Innolight as just a random example) are probably looking to source more lasers. And that kinda matches the quote "capable of very rapid qualification and ramp" (which would not match Series B startup)... Lot of people are asking why aren't there LTAs to 2030 then? -> You can't just randomly escape the qualification process that established players have already completed. Why aren't the customers disclosed? And as seen with the $MRVL + $POET engagement, you can't just disclose the vendors you're working with. But the "$1.2B opportunity pipeline" almost doubled relative to the jump of $JBL + $GFS. So it's signals that the new pluggable engagements might be pretty substantial relative to Jabil. So if $SIVE comes along with enormous amounts of CW DFB laser capacity during a supply shortage... The industry conditions have changed in a major way that increases conversion rates of engagements. And with the sheer size from all your ~est. customers jabil, globalfoundries, poet, aeva, lightium, ayar, (maybe lightmatter, celestial, lightelligence), 6 other pluggable players, and others. I think Sivers is going to cook after connecting the dots.

$SIVE ER transcript just dropped, TLDR: - 6 NEW pluggable players working with Sivers now. Probably the biggest news of the entire ER next to new foundry allocations. "3 are in alpha sample evaluation stage" and another 3 in technical engagement / supply assessment stage." And now it makes more sense why their $1.2B revenue pipeline ballooned (since this was a bigger leap than Jabil). - Initial production orders with $JBL expected in the first half of 2027, with the production ramp planned second half of 2027 LFG, Jabil is a massive hyperscaler supplier and finally got clear timelines on revenue from volume ramp. - "new foundry partner who has brought on tremendous capacity that is available now" This is what I wanted to hear. Apparently they've been in the works for this for awhile since it's "available now", and THIS IS VERY MATERIAL. CW lasers are in a massive shortage and $SIVE brought on new supply outside of Win Semi (also de-risks). As you hear with other qualified CW players (anything they make gets sold), so as Sivers partners finishes their qualifications, I'm expecting the same. - "long-term capacity model where one-third of manufacturing capacity will be internal, while two-thirds will come from our foundry partners" Lukewarm on this, it makes sense they need to be vertically integrated like $AAOI / $LITE eventually but implies more capex (better after NASDAQ listing). As you see with ESMT + DDR2 bottlenecks, the operating income they get from just securing wafers during shortages and doing fabless models is incredible. And it would make more sense to fund this with cashflow down the road. - NASDAQ listing ongoing. CFO gave a very lawyer like answer, but on track as usual. - "We do not see production capacity as a bottleneck at this point in time" This is very meaningful since with their new foundry partners, implies $SIVE is coming online with a very material CW laser supply to a bottlenecked market. TLDR: - NEW substantial FOUNDRY ALLOCATION! (very, very material during CW laser shortage) - 6 new pluggable players outside of $JBL - Clear revenue ramp timelines from Jabil Heavy focus on pluggables -> NPO -> CPO seems like the progression. Only lukewarm piece was building up internal capacity but it's long term positive. Anyway, very happy after reading the transcript aside from potential capex prioritizing laser capacity (which is fine too during an industry shortage) over IP acquisition. The 6 new pluggable players + substantial wafer allocation "available now" is a pretty insane disclosure.

I know everyone’s watching $NVDA earnings right now… But did you know Landmark signed a 4 year CW agreement with US customer to ensure “sufficient supply”? So now you have: - $LITE (capacity gone) - $COHR (capacity gone) - Landmark (capacity committed) - $AAOI (capacity for transceivers) - $MTSI (not online) - $SMTC (limited) I remember saying earlier this year CW lasers would be the next optical shift and heavily bottlenecked by Nvidia? So fun watching this play out, with players signing LTAs already to 2030 (signaling less availability for other players). Implications for $SIVE / Win Semi are very material as one of the few remaining CW merchant suppliers with capacity (+ CPO-grade lasers). Let’s see how they execute.

Very positive. My opinion is that the optical sector underperformance recently from $AAOI to $SIVE has been absurd. The demand visibility... is just way too stupidly high. AOI: “Even combined AOI, Coherent program altogether, is still very tough to meet the customer demand in the next 3 years” (2029) Elazr GM: "entire optical supply chain was facing major shortages." "The shortage will continue to the next few years" Sivers CEO said the same thing about InP laser demand imbalances expected for the next 3-5 years. Can go on and on about $LITE, $MTSI and other comments. We haven't even hit the inflection point with 1.6T, NPO, CPO scale out/up, and optics with memory (as seen with SK Hynix). Yet the industry is already bottlenecked by EML/CW and all your other upstream components from PDs/TIA/DSPs, transceivers, and soon FAU + others when CPO scales… I'm personally extremely comfortable watching this all play out, but just a little confused that markets don't know how to math a year or two ahead.

We got $LITE, $MTSI, $AAOI all pointing to extreme demand imbalances with lasers/TIA/DSP/etc from earnings... And now Elazr GM at their investor conference stated: Optical supply is still far behind the market demand, the expected AI optical supply chain are likely to continue for years. - "the entire supply chain is out of stock" - "the supply is still far behind the market demand" - "the shortage will continue to the next few years" "Whether it is PCB, carrier board, laser chip, or even related packaging capacity, as long as the AI supply chain link, almost all are in short supply." When demand visibility extends for years with the supply chain bottlenecked: It's getting difficult not to see photonics echoing the memory supercycle entering 2027.

My $AAOI TLDR notes at Rosenblatt summit: - Expected to get paid premiums for US production of 800g/1.6T (very positive for ASP/margins). - Several LTAs on the table, but doesn't want to sign to get capacity blocked by other customers (cough cough $NVDA). - Sold out at least through second half of next year and beyond. (High demand visibility like $LITE) - Has 300-400 mW lasers already. - Expects margins to be above 40%+ once CPO comes about (probably most material for rerating). I can't see how anyone can be bearish on this company...

I feel like AI investing is simpler than what people expect. Because $NVDA + Jensen literally tells everyone what's coming. But somehow. Almost every. single. time. Markets dismiss it until it actually happens? Be Nvidia in 2025: Buys up EML and laser capacity. Markets dismissing it: "Photonics is a bubble and like quantum! ____ company is a scam with shady management" 1 year later: $LITE +678%, $AAOI +475.12%, $COHR +260.7%, $AXTI +3,843.9%. _ Nvidia in 2026: Buys up CW/EML capacity with LTAs. 800V shift. Extraordinary explicit about CPO shift. States Physical AI as the next theme. Markets now: "CW players are meme stocks! 800v, CPO is not coming anytime soon, Humanoids are not profitable!" Yeah... We'll see what happens in 2027. I think I'm putting my money on Jensen/Nvidia as the leading indicator.

Just some TLDRs of stuff I found interesting: - $SNDK 80% adjusted gross margins projections through 2030, ~75% operating margins and ~50% adjusted FCF margins from investor day. LTAs already 2/3rd of 2028 output. Minimum contracted revenue reaches $93B (MC is currently ~$239B)... Hard to be a cyclical stock when your revenue/targets are expected to continue 4Y later into 2030. - $CRWV signs contracts for 6Y old $NVDA A100 GPUs through 2029. For Neoclouds like Nebius/Iren, this is positive, since it's a counterargument for eg. Burry depreciation short thesis - conventional DRAM gross margins eg. Micron is estimated to reach an unprecedented 95% by 2027, surpassing HBM GMs per UBS read through for legacy/standard dram players like Nanya/Winbond should go brrrr if projections are correct. - Anthropic reportedly achieved 14x+ YoY growth and roughly 2.4x sequential revenue growth q2 to >$11.5B,. estimating growth to $190–200B in 2028r evenue numbers. Your frontier labs keep growing at stupidly fast paces, it would be worrisome if they didnt. - $NVDA reportedly in talks to invest $3B in SB Energy (Softbank subsidiary), creates a >$500B compute financing push with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman, and others. $NVDA Feynman reportedly moves to TSMC A16 + SoIC + custom HBM + CPO in H2 2028 Just more nvidia news every day - $MSFT Maia 300 discussed $TSM capacity for >300k units in 2027, with expansion to 1m+. Unveils as soon as September. Likely $MRVL should be more happy from this news. For what's happening right now: - maybe GUC for Microsoft current ASIC ramp. - For the Amazon party, stuff like Alchip (I do own shares), likely is ramping now with $AMZN ASIC program H2 2026... So might be a good idea to look at hyperscaler ASIC ramp timelines + their beneficiaries. - $TSM VP of Advanced Packaging stated "the industry is likely to face not only memory shortages but also tight ABF substrate supply over the next few years"... Emphasis on few years for memory + ABF substrates for bottlenecks. Even upstream abf substrate equipment providers are happy, eg. Eternal Precision which uses vacuum lamination equipment stated orders surged, their plants have been running at full capacity, and 20%+ price hikes. - $AMAT expects advanced packaging revenue to grow >70% in 2026, versus prior >50%, and said customer discussions now extend all the way to 2030 (not too familiar with this company, but found their growth rate from 2025 Q4 $6.8B ->$7.01B -> 7.91B -> $9.12B -> $10.25B Q4 2026 projections pretty interesting) - Google said at OCP APAC said conventional 48V is running out of headroom. $NVDA detailed an 800VDC MGX-compatible rack H2 2026 (timeline, Delta / Lite-On beneficaries) - Aside from $SNDK, Nanya LTAs cover 50% of capacity. CXMT signed multi-year DRAM agreements last month, so entire memory industry seems to be following same playbook as ur big 3. - Probe cards remain a bottleneck, MPI(6223) said their probe card capacity remains fully utilized because demand exceeds supply. Already covered the CW laser bottleneck with $AAOI, $SIVE, and $LITE earlier this week, but that's another fun one. - some MLCC/component lead times have hit 36 weeks per Nichidenbo. Your Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Taiyo Yuden, Murata, players should be very happy to hear this. TLDR: AI supply chains go brrr.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

$LITE (August 5, 2026-Daily Chart Update) $LITE has to clear the longest momentum bar at $894.25 for trend reversal. https://t.co/kY8QcyNC0u

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 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

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.

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?

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