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Friday, November 6, 2026

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@aleabitoreddit 1 click

Serenity on X

With $AXTI, even if demand was cut 50%, they'd still likely be sold out. Since customers are asking for 3x+ their contracted volumes. I'd argue InP substrates are just as severe as lasers. In just 90 days, $AXTI literally went from: Q2 backlog: $100m Q3 backlog: $500m+ With an extra $300-$400m+ from ordinary business, not multi-year agreements from $LITE / $COHR. I'm sure there's some double ordering but the materials are just so cheap relative to overall BOM, that it's spare change.
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

For companies like $SIVE / $AAOI, the demand imbalance for lasers are so severe That even a 20-30% overall demand reduction from a hypothetical DC slowdown would likely not eliminate the shortage. We're seeing this before the next architectural shifts, where $NVDA Jensen Huang expects 15x optical volume for CPO scale-up. And as more hyperscalers commit to NPO as seen with $LITE new $5B UHP laser contracts. I'd argue this is more nuanced since I can't say the same for finished 800G/1.6T pluggables or lower end 70mW-100mW laser ranges that are currently bottlenecks. But this argument is more toward higher spec lasers. $AAOI is vertically integrated and has 300-400 mW capabilities, so they have the capability to shift attention to merchant lasers over supplying end-to-end optical transceivers. $SIVE is more pure play on this laser bottleneck, but they have the capabilities for 200mW + higher margin multiwavelength NPO/CPO lasers. I'd argue this is specifically the case for bottlenecks where demand imbalances are so deep (creating higher long term visibility, such as HBM). Whether it's large body substrates from $ATS that's bottlenecking Marvell + $AMD or lasers from $LITE that are sold out into 2029. or liquid transformers that have 4-5 year lead times. They they would still sell out of capacity even if overall demand decreased. If markets de-risked, it would make sense to hit optical module manufacturing players, maybe server rack assembly, to companies that still require heavy financing like Neoclouds. And obviously haircut growth valuations (but not to the point where demand collapses to 0). Yet we're seeing everything in AI trade is getting lumped up together as something that requires heavy financing + not profitable.
@aleabitoreddit 1 click

Serenity on X

If a company is valued at $2B, has ~$1B in cash/inventory... And makes $354M FCF a quarter. Then returns 30-50% of FCF for dividends next year. I'd argue it's more of a matter of time before shareholder returns/fundamentals, (especially memory) overpower forced selling. But stock prices can look really dislocated from actual performance for periods of time, like now. Same with photonics, but that's more of a 2027-2028 growth type story with CPO + more optical content/xpu. Laser companies like $LITE, $AAOI, and potentially $SIVE depending on quals, would likely be printing few years after capacity expansion comes online. And it's already been largely funded... Lumentum with $NVDA + hyperscalers, AOI with $1.6B+ in ATMs, Sivers with 700M SEK from institutions. Compared to other sectors that still require a lot of capital for their buildouts.
@ActAccordingly

PAA Research on X

Not a surprise, but still encouraging. The Zelda remake from $NTDOY has a 96 right now on metacritic. It comes out today. No one seems to talk about 7974/$NTDOY because there's no Mario title this year, but putting out a remake of arguably the best video game ever made and then matching its excellence in front of a major motion picture release seems like it's good for revenue, earnings, and cash flow. I don't think investors understand the #zelda fan base. or maybe #nintendo in its entirety. @firstadopter
@aleabitoreddit

Serenity on X

Little rant, but to show you how rampant deleveraging has become: - $CIFR is worth 44% LESS than when they announced their initial $GOOGL / $AMZN colo deals. - $AAOI is now ~ the same price BEFORE they secured major hyperscaler orders, raised $1.6B for capacity expansion and gave their suprising initial -> $378M+ projection -> ~$471M revenue forecast. - $ESMT ($2B MC) is the perfect example representing the memory sector. B-BUT AI NAMES ARE NOT PROFITABLE??? Q3 Earnings: $526.2M gross profit, $330M net income. To give you a comparison of what that looks like, the net income of $CRWD ($251B MC) was literally $5.3M. $NOW ($113B MC) was $277M. $TSLA ($1.5T) was $787M. Different industries/durability, but if we care about what's actually hitting the balance sheet: ESMT is sitting on ~$937M in net assets ($740M net cash, $278M inventory, etc), so EV goes down to $1.2B ish. Annualized P/E: 1.6x... People keep saying "Peak Earnings", "Cyclical", "no moat" but who in the world would want to build an old ass DDR2 line + fab and qualify it? From ESMT commentary, we'll likely see ASP hikes Q4 to make up for potential consumer demand dropping. And further supply tightening with Samsung/Micron discontinuing DDR2/DDR3 lines. Winbond was leaving DDR2 lines to pursue higher end memory. People keep saying China, but even Gigadevice was leaving DDR3 to pursue higher end memory. "DDR3's share of our DRAM revenue will continue to decline until we eventually stop selling DDR3 products."Nanya discontinued DDR2 lines few days ago. This is while majority of ESMT revenue comes from DDR2/DDR3. In ~3 quarters of constant earnings, ESMT would have more assets than their entire MC. Who is going to stop buying $40 DLink cameras if their $3 memory cost goes to $3.5? $MU / Samsung / $SKHY / $SNDK share similar parallels where durability is contractually enforced via take/pay LTAs with price floors. But markets are pretending that it just won't happen, despite Samsung already being the most profitable company in the world. Markets should care about how much FCF is actually hitting the balance sheets, but are just indiscriminately selling off everything now. But continue rotating capital into 47x P/E companies like Walmart or 180x forward P/E names like $CRWD.

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ARM Q2 FY3/27 Earnings Review

Arm reported Q2 revenue of $1.443 billion, up 27%, as licensing rose 50% while royalties grew 8%; Q3 guidance calls for $1.54 billion.

ARM $181B
Cestrian Capital Research

AppLovin 3Q26: Business Update

AppLovin's 3Q26 revenue rose 55% year over year and margins reached 78.2%, driven by AXON model gains, while publisher bidding pressure…

APP $118B
Speedwell Memos 2 clicks

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