Bullpen.News From Edwin Dorsey
Get Daily Recap Feedback

Friday, October 30, 2026

Back to today

From X

@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

I think almost everything about my $AXTI thesis from 2025 was validated? From AXT's position in the InP substrate bottleneck... Being able to threaten the hyperscaler buildout (per Reuters)... $IQE has been flagging this as a major risk, VPEC and Taiwan epiwafer foundries have been crying over InP substrate bottlenecks. And there's even AXT direct confirmation of partnerships with $LITE and $COHR as the InP substrate supplier. AXT also stated $130m/quarter InP revenue capacity exiting 2027 (~$520m annualized) so that's a massive revenue inflection compared to previously. Now... the biggest question is: How much can AXT price hike? The substrates they make are just such a tiny part of the BOM... but can threaten hyperscaler buildouts with optics. So if they manage to price hike to $SNDK NAND degrees (which they can), then I think AXT could get re-rated a ton from here. But if they end up like Japanese ABF suppliers that are less willing to abuse their position, that's a different story. Will need to do more channel checks to see how that's coming along. But at the very least, I would argue there should be some valuation baseline just due to their critical importance (eg. upstream refinery ownerships, crucible processing, etc) + existing capacity revenue without hikes. TLDR: - Bottleneck thesis was at like ~$500m MC - Upside now comes from price hikes due to duopoly position + ownership of upstream bottlenecks in the InP substrate manufacturing process. (which they can due to low cost of InP substrates in overall costs) - Uncharted territory, we'll see (also a central part of geopolitical tensions so there's always risk there).
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

Good question! Just some informal thoughts... there's three "moats" to look at for $SIVE: - Capacity - Qualifications (especially for custom DFB lasers) - Technological 1. For capacity, they're coming online with 100M+ CW DFB lasers Q4 2027 (global supply is roughly ~608M EML/CW lasers currently per Trendforce). Obviously by 2027 global capacity is going to grow a lot, with $AAOI, $AVGO (3x expansion), and others coming online. But if you extrapolate their 2:1 statement, that implies 300m lasers/year long term coming from their own supply + external foundries. This is incredibly valuable during a shortage that was quoted to be 3-5 years, and $LITE stating they already have demand visibility into 2031... And when suppliers have started to qualify many more (eg. 5-7 vendors vs. 2-3 earlier) due to bottlenecks. I'm sure a lot of how they achieve that staggering amount is due to their manufacturing process/yields (which is a moat). 2. For qualifications, if you look at 70mW/100mW pluggable lines with Chinese players, I'd argue this is more generic and moreso reverting back to a capacity argument and manufacturing process to achieve those numbers. Custom DFB arrays that they've been working on with Ayar (they hinted at 2-3 others back in 2023 like Celestial) take years for optical i/o related things and would be a moat if they finish quals. So it's not quite something you can hot swap or design out really easily for $MTSI or another company. But of course cpo scale up and such is mass volume in 2028, and we're still H2 2026. 3. People can always compare raw specs like power output, but it's probably way way more nuanced so easier to just point toward customer statements. With $JBL 1.6T LRO: "I think that there's the potential for a relatively dramatic moat with our LRO part…" from Jabil's EVP, especially related to power consumption. And $SIVE is my guess sole source in this line. Jabil is probably the most important testament to how their lasers perform in mass production scenarios maybe around Q2 next year. Ayar said something similar along the lines of "we couldn't do it without Sivers" for custom implementations.
@StableBread

Fajasy on X

BWX Technologies $BWXT is in military base power three ways, through (1) Project Pele, a prototype reactor it’s building for the Pentagon, (2) the TRISO fuel its microreactors run on, and (3) Janus, the Army program that chose $BWXT’s commercial reactor for Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Pele is a 1.5-megawatt (MW) transportable, gas-cooled microreactor built for the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office under a 2022 award. $BWXT delivered its full TRISO fuel core to Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in December 2025, received the Department of Energy’s (DOE) preliminary safety approval in September 2026, and targets delivering the reactor to INL in 2027. TRISO (tri-structural isotropic) fuel, which the Department of Energy calls “the most robust nuclear fuel on earth,” packs uranium into particles coated in carbon and ceramic layers. $BWXT produces TRISO at Lynchburg “in the hundreds of kilograms quantities,” Joe Miller, president of Government Operations, said at its Investor Day on September 29, 2026. It also supplied the fuel for Antares, a microreactor startup whose reactor was the first new reactor to reach criticality (a self-sustaining chain reaction) under DOE’s reactor pilot program in June 2026. POWER magazine, a power-industry trade publication, reports $BWXT is “the only Janus vendor that self-supplies its TRISO fuel.” $BWXT is also negotiating a commercial TRISO plant in Wyoming with Kairos Power, an advanced reactor developer, at up to $500M of capex. CFO Mike Fitzgerald said at Investor Day that $BWXT needs to see high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU, the 5-20% enriched uranium most advanced reactors need) become available before committing to the plant, and “probably will not make a decision on that for a little while.” The Army chose BANR (the BWXT Advanced Nuclear Reactor), a 20 MWe (megawatts of electricity) gas-cooled design scaled up from Pele, for Fort Campbell. $BWXT plans to start construction at the site in late 2028 and have the reactor running in the early 2030s. Three details matter here: 1) No contract value: $BWXT’s release describes “a phased contracting approach.” For comparison, the Janus agreement for Radiant, a microreactor startup, is worth up to $750M. 2) $BWXT will own the reactor: The Army chose vendors “to own, construct and operate nuclear microreactors” ($BWXT’s release), under fixed-price, milestone-based agreements in which the Army pays at milestones rather than buying power. 3) Not first in line: With operation in the early 2030s, $BWXT’s reactor won’t meet the September 30, 2028 deadline a May 2025 executive order set for an Army-regulated reactor running on a U.S. military base. Radiant and Antares, two of the other Janus vendors, both target 2028 for their first reactors. After Radiant’s agreement, $1.45B of the program’s $2.2B is left, and an even split among the other four vendors would give $BWXT ~$360M over fiscal 2027-2031, or $72M/year, under 2% of 2026 revenue guidance.
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

Someone did ask “How is Serenity” this time around! So I’m happy. I’m just personally excited about $LITE selling out into 2029 and implications for optical peers like $AAOI. Not advice, but I personally think markets haven’t fully caught onto the scale of AOI’s ramp in 2027 + current bottleneck severity. It’s one of my largest positions right now for a reason! Also I’m looking forward to touching grass over the weekend. Apparently there was an OCP San Jose event… Maybe I’ll drop by if there’s a Kiss of Life group like at ICML.

Investor Letters

All letters

Another Haircut with Avy the Barber

SoFi’s stock case hinges on interest rates, tangible book value and private-credit loan sales after its $1.5 billion equity offering.

SOFI $22B
WHAT ARE WE DOING? “Contrarians At The Gate” 3 clicks

Twilio CEO: ‘Buy the dip!’

Twilio CEO Khozema Shipchandler urged investors to “buy the dip” after earnings sent the software maker’s shares down 17% after hours.

TWLO $31B
The Technology Letter 2 clicks

OSS Q3 FY12/26 Earnings Analysis

One Stop Systems grew Q3 continuing-operations revenue 36% to $12.6 million, raised FY2026 revenue guidance to $45 million, and used $11.8…

OSS $129M
Cestrian Capital Research 1 click

CoStar: 3Q26 Business Recap

CoStar’s 3Q26 revenue growth slowed to 14% as bookings fell to $37 million, while cost cuts lifted EBIT margin to 8.8%.

CSGP $13B
Speedwell Memos 3 clicks
RYZ · long

Ryerson Holding CORP

Ryerson Holding (RYZ) is a long position following its all-stock merger with Olympic Steel, at 1.7105 RYZ shares per Olympic Steel share.

RYZ $1.7B
Value Investors Club

Publications we follow

Every publication on this site, hand-picked.

129 publications

Newsletters 109

YouTube 4

Blogs 15

Seeking Alpha 70 of 272

Nominate a publication

X accounts we follow

Every account on this site, hand-picked.

91 accounts
Nominate an account

Investor letters we follow

266 firms

Sectors

Ordered by how often our editor reaches for them.