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Monday, November 2, 2026

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@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

Following the Lumentum / Marvell deal: My opinion is that independent Western laser players, like $AAOI, $COHR, and $SIVE became a lot more strategically valuable. $MTSI and $SMTC should get some attention too as emerging laser players in 2027. If I had to guess: 1. Companies competing against Marvell, or not in the $NVDA ecosystem bandwagon, such as $AMD, are likely going to rethink their relationship with $LITE. If getting bottlenecked by Nvidia capacity agreements wasn't enough... Incentives around qualifying + bringing up other laser players, seems very necessary now. Since you generally don't want competitors like Marvell to have influence or visibility over your roadmaps, IP, capacity, pricing, etc. even if there is a "firewall". 2. $MRVL acquiring Lumentum opened pandoras box in a way of acquiring a critical chokepoint all your competitors + buyers use. $LITE was used by your major hyperscalers and across AI supply chains. Now, your leaders might wonder if weaponizing capacity agreements might not be as effective.... If someone else can just buy the entire company. There's only a few major public merchant Western players out there, and I'm also sure many others will want to follow the Marvell / Broadcom route via vertical integration, given I think $MRVL saves around $1B+ in costs/year. So M&A premiums likely went up. $SMTC was actively looking to buy laser capacity via M&A so I'm sure they're looking at $SIVE given their 100M CW DFB laser expansion + tiny MC. $JBL also probably wants to vertically integrate down the road too so $SIVE is also an acquisition target for their 1.6T program. $AMD was looking for ELSFP + CW capacity given Nvidia bottlenecks, so I'm sure they've looked at $AAOI. can go on and on about other ASIC players (like in Taiwan) that likely are looking at vertical integration too. Since multiple players use a small subset of laser suppliers, if competitors just go ahead and buys them... There's a lot pressure to M&A for their own supply chain defensibility. TLDR: Independent laser suppliers should capture a material strategic revaluation since $MRVL + $LITE, sets a new precedent + implications. We'll see what happens.
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

I actually thought $MRVL would buy $SIVE given smaller MC, but they went ahead and bought $LITE instead. Since it looked like Marvell was heading the Broadcom direction with vertical integration and needed lasers. As you said, $SIVE / $AAOI are much more strategically valuable now (both as independent suppliers + M&A prospects). Never crossed my mind Lumentum would get bought... but this sets an example for other players on what you can do now.
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

Considering $LITE (that is sold out into 2029) is going to get swallowed up by $MRVL next week. I see $AAOI / $SIVE / $COHR are going to be a lot more strategically valuable in the West. Both for M&A prospects (which deserves a premium) so companies can vertically integrate like $AVGO. + players are going to be incentivized to qualify other light sources not owned by their competitor. $AAOI has a ton of optionality to supply CPO lasers in 2027 if they buy transceiver laser supply merchant, since they have the technology now. But 2028 they'll have capacity available AFAIK. AOI also had a lot of opportunities to sign LTAs but didn't, so there's a lot more uncertainty alongside the series of $600M ATMs. But we'll see how they're doing, especially with their 1.6T shipments... Laser chokepoint part of the optical supply chain is extraordinarily strong
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

We've finally made it to November... holy crap October was brutal. Per Morgan Stanley data, the recent hedge fund de-grossing was the highest in the past 10 years. Exceeding the: - 2016 Chinese stock market crash - 2018 Volmageddon - March 2020 COVID crash - 2021 Archegos collapse / Evergrande crisis - 2022 bear market Goldman's prime brokerage desk reported on the 26th that it had also seen ~$20B of selling over 2 weeks vs. $23 billion during July's entire unwind. From $HOOD short interest data, from Sept -> Oct short float also increased from: $AAOI: 12.5% -> 19.84%+ $AEVA: 11% -> 25.64%+ $CBRS: 12.25% -> 20.12%+ $AEHR: 14.33% -> 17.93%+ $TSEM: 2.15% -> 4.73%+ $CIFR: 19.94% -> 25.39%+ $LWLG: 15.24% ->19.12%+ $OKLO: 17.72% ->22.93%+ $CRWV: 17.91% ->26.58%+ Substantial deleveraging coinciding with surging short interest, kinda looks like a July setup after Midterms? The recent rotation also kinda pushed names like $CRWD and cybersecurity to bubble valuations into hundreds of fwd P/E... Earnings on many AI capex + bottlenecks (not all like $INTC) looked strong: eg. $AXTI guided annualized Q4 = 23.7x P/E now, not including potential InP substrate hikes + capacity expansion that can compress it to single digits. - $SKHY (~$59B operating profit) casually making more than trillion dollar companies like Amazon ($28.1B operating profit), backed with 5Y LTAs. - No signs of $MSFT / $AMZN materially cutting capex, while $SPCX secures $40B more for GPU procurement. Slightly painful, but I think the AI capex trade (specifically photonics/memory) is a generational opportunity, with extreme volatility in between.
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A Capital on X

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