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Wednesday, October 28, 2026

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@orrdavid

David Orr on X

Another thing: This post is *not* meant to call a short term top. I sometimes want to. Maybe even I have hinted that's what I think. But that's wrong. The best way to think is, "I don't know when the top will be, maybe $SOXX really does take another 100% leg up first, who knows, why not." But that next big move up or down seems like a pure guess to me. So at least for making a binary bet - a bet on $SOXX beta - it's a pure casino. There probably is some brilliant way to structure this trade, though. You're long compute and you're short the things that more intelligence kills - like really kills, not that benefits from AI letting them cut 90% of their staff. For my part, there are just way too many eyes on the trade for me to be all that interested, though. Because if too many smart people figure out how to solve that fundamentally guess what ... the long/short could easily blow up in a month, just before the collapse, since the market won't often give such large crowds a free lunch pair trade. I say screw all of that, better to just focus on real investments, in the real world, that likely benefit from AI or at least don't get hurt. That is not a gamble today, and lots of those stocks are just straight up cheap. The only downside is that the AI trade will probably keep the stocks trading weak ... but this side is NOT hard to do broad, uncrowded pair trades on, so who cares.
@ParadisLabs 1 click

Paradis on X

Initial notes on $MRVL's rumoured $LITE acquisition: 1. Why?! - $LITE's CEO has said they're sold out into 2029. So do management think the InP laser shortage is shorter than what their orders suggest? Need more clarity on why Lumentum would green light this. - With lasers sold out into 2029, I think owning the fab might be the only way $MRVL can guarantee supply for FY28 growth. So maybe Marvell and Lumentum have different reads on the InP laser shortage? 2. This has to be mostly stock. - $MRVL has ~$3.9B cash vs. $5.0B debt. Combined run-rate EBITDA is circa $7-7.5B (my numbers), so I think staying investment grade caps new debt at around $15-20B. - At a ~30% premium that leaves $85-90B+ paid in stock, with $LITE holders owning ~30% of the combined company. - I feel that’s a lot of Marvell to hand over. 3. I think the strategy is much better than the reaction. - $MRVL are essentially buying the part of the optical link that survives the move to CPO which is a pretty smart hedge on their own DSP franchise. - Marvell announced Inphi around 6 years ago (~$10B in cash + stock), and that deal built the core of MRVL's optics business. - This is basically the same move just one layer down, from DSP to laser, stacked on Celestial AI. - Probably a good signal that Marvell are running the same optics playbook again? 4. Dilution. - $MRVL trades on about 52x run rate EPS. - $LITE is about 60x on its FQ1 guide at tonight's AH price and about 70x with a 30% premium. - That's ~15% dilutive to Marvell's run-rate EPS (my rough napkin math number) assuming a 30% premium, ~$17.5B of new debt at ~5%, and the rest in stock at $228. (Again, very rough numbers). - It only turns accretive if Lumentum keeps outgrowing Marvell at today's guided rates (+24% q/q vs +15%) for another five or six quarters. - I think that's achievable while the laser shortage lasts, but I feel the whole deal ends up being a bet on how long that is. 5. Fewer lasers on the open market. - If LITE's output gets prioritised for $NVDA and Marvell's own modules, everyone else buying LITE EMLs and CW lasers gets tighter allocation. - I think that's bullish for laser pricing at $COHR and for other laser sources like $SIVE (lol). - Feels like the module makers that depend on LITE lasers are the quiet losers. 6. Channel conflict. - Marvell is the leading DSP supplier to 800G/1.6T module makers, and LITE already sells its own modules through Cloud Light. - I think Innolight and Eoptolink start shifting DSP share to $AVGO and $CRDO? - I feel hyperscalers will push harder to second-source lasers from $COHR.
@orrdavid

David Orr on X

Look at this last chart carefully. April implied that the next few months would get more expensive, and they did. July implied that the next couple of months would get more expensive, and it was wrong. And AI traded sideways. September again implied that October would go up, and October indeed went up a lot! And $SOXX tried to rally hard,m and then failed hard, even though October's curve suggests prices are still going up over the next month or two? It's hard to say exactly. What I am confident amount: Once the more modern compute starts going down rather than up, the AI trade will have already imploded many months beforehand.

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