$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.

$GOOGL Gemini 4 Argon benchmarks got released. Against GPT-6 Astra + Anthropic Fable 5.1 / Opus 5.5. Still coughing nonstop, so will comment on $MU / $JBL earnings later. I've always thought Google's internal models were stellar, but anecdotally, they seem to get hard nerfed shortly after public release... Maybe because of compute constraints? But yeah, looks like Google is back.

Bro, $AMZN semi ETF portfolio is probably going to end up more compelling than what $NVDA owns... Today Amazon signed a $49.8M private placement into PCB maker Gold Circuit Electronics (2368). So now Amazon has ownership/warrants in: - $AAOI - Alchip - $MRVL (Celestial) - $ALAB - $CRDO - $JBL - $FLEX - $STM - $CBRS - $GNRC - $FN - TD SYNNEX - $QCOM - Gold Circuit Electronics And others.. If we look at the private placement amount for GCE in speciifc, it's like .36% of the company... Kinda small financially, meaningful strategically. Esp. since there were claims that GCE supplies ASIC-server PCBs to the four major hyperscaler CSPs... Regardless it's pretty funny to see Amazon to Nvidia start to own all the worlds leading companies. Since Amazon has exposure to the entire supply chain like PCBs now, optical fabric with Celestial, lasers with $AAOI, assembly from $FN to $JBL, ASIC partners like $QCOM / ALchip.

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.

People really need to stop thinking about 5% yields over 10 years or 30 years. Even the inflation of my $SUBWAY sandwich has gone up like 12% a year. Today it was like $20 after tax, when it used to be like $5… 12 years ago. The best way to keep up with inflation of the things that matter, like Sandwiches, is equities like $SPY.

$AKAM signs $11.6B compute deal with Anthropic for accelerated CPU workloads demands over 7 years. $AMD to $MU should be happy to hear this… Akamai ests. ~$5.5B of capex to service the $11.6B commitment. Including +$1.7B of 2026 capex specifically to pre-purchase supply chain components like memory. So much for Anthropic/OpenAI calling for an AI slowdown?

If you're curious about the random $SPY / $QQQ candle: Just now, “US and Iran discuss phased deal to reopen Hormuz and end US blockade" - Reuters - "A deal before the midterms could benefit Trump, as reopening Hormuz could ease tensions in the Gulf, contain ​oil prices and help bring down politically sensitive US gasoline prices." - "Trump has said he thinks the US and Iran could reach a deal after midterm elections to Congress on November.” Would make sense for Trump to want markets as strong as possible during Midterms elections…

$AAOI has finished a $500m ATM In April.. $600m ATM in June. Then filed another $600m in August. It's out of my control if management wants to abuse this trash repeated ATM structure. Instead following $AXTI like LTA prepayments and using that to fund buildout. Or taking private placements like $NVDA + Nebius for $2B and using that to fund buildout. Or convertible notes at 40% premiums. It's really hard for the stock to break out of $100 or $150 or $200 if there's $600M of selling pressure at those levels (and maybe expectations of future ATMs). I had the same criticism with $IREN with their $6B ATM, which is why it's been rangebound for half a year. And I'll say the same thing with my own thesis names too. I see $AAOI operationally very bullish for 2027, with $471m/month transceiver revenue. 400k ELSFP units/month entering 2028. The revenue ramp is absurd and can compress to single digit forward P/E. But I find it hard to get excited over funding infinite ATMs during the buildout, when you're sacrificing opportunity cost with names currently profitable like $SNDK or Samsung. I think a lot of retail investors conflate stock performance with how a company is doing operationally. $AAOI is capitalizing on a bottleneck with high demand visibility, but stock has been going nowhere near-term with repeated ATMs. I do expect AOI to strongly outperform (especially in 2027) if they stop issuing these stupid ATMs.

Wow $NBIS relative outperformance is wild. Back in 2025 I wrote my Neocloud thesis on $IREN to $CRWV. But I made the decision months later to consolidate it all into Nebius... Despite the the hate from FinX back then. Very interesting to see Nebius up 6% even during sector drop… After Oracle was reportedly seeking payment protection if Project Jupiter misses its 2028 opening. With Oracle: "seeking to protect itself from potential cost increases related to a large DC ​project in New Mexico by sending a force majeure notice" per Reuters. Lot of new people like to piggyback after it’s up a lot, but there was a lot less people bullish back in 2025. Especially during the period with a ton of institutional short sellers back in December. I still think markets might be underestimating sum of parts growth, even if its core business grows like crazy 2027+ onwards.

I’ve actually entered positions in many tiny Korean companies recently… That actively supply memory, test, machines, etc. to $MU, $SKHY, Samsung, and others like $SMTC + US companies. It’s pretty interesting what you find in the $30-$250m range for optical components, CPUs, memory, and others that are inflecting due to AI. I don’t share these names publicly since risks/volatility is enormous. But one or two going from $40M -> $400m makes the risk/reward worth it for me personally.

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.

Elon Musk: "AI will beat [humans] in all fields by the end of next year or maybe 2028, at the latest." Kind of maps to Anthropic's economic implications paper where 2026-2028 was the buildout. Then 2028-2030 was unprecedented economic growth. So we're still early H2 2026.

I feel like traditional "value investing" went into hibernation. Before it was finding a 10x -12x P/E company like $UPWK or $PYPL, Dominoes, Pepsi. Or even a cheap Japanese company below book value. Then just enjoying slow growth but buyback/dividend appreciation from their cashflow. Now you can find 1.8x runrate P/E company like $ESMT that grew revenue 605.24% Y/Y. And the main thing you need to argue about is duration. Or a 16.2x trailing P/E Sumitomo, despite having way too many hyperscaler LTAs in AI from fiber to lasers. AI created much bigger medium-term anomaly, where "value investing" went towards high growth, "deep value" companies.

Wow Bitcoin + Ethereum pulled pretty extreme recoveries. Looks like $HOOD / $COIN / Crypto is back? On-chain equities trading + regulator exemptions probably put a lot of fuel into the fire for the sector. That aside... crypto is usually a great indicator for high-beta AI equities believe it or not (they tend to frontrun broader market drops or rallies). So overall market risk appetite might be coming back despite the rate hikes.

All right $META Muse is cooking. I can hear all the $AMD, $INTC, and $ARM CPUs vrrrring in the background. Along with the memory + components (NICs, SSDs, DRAM) needed for all the browsers/VMs When I ask it to do a bunch of long form tasks… Intel CEO also said recently that CPU demand is so strong they can only support 50% of what customers need, so there’s some signals there. I’m also curious how much $AMZN or $NBIS is involved with running Muse, or if Meta hosts everything inhouse. Kinda an ADHD post but Meta beat my expectations with this release. Will keep trying it out

We’re in the modern agricultural revolution. In terms of civilization-level impact of AI. So… not sure how anyone can be bearish so early on into the singularity and before mass deployment of physical AI.

I'm not having a fun day since I got sick today. But the bottlenecks are having a good time: $AMD +9.13% | $INTC +14.16% | $ARM +14.33% CPUs go brrr $SIVE +10.32% | $AAOI +3.39% | AMS OSRAM +24.61% Lasers go brrr $EWY +4.08% | $DRAM +2.83% | $MU +2.23% Memory go brrr $NBIS +4.7% | $CRWV +5.03% | $IREN +1.73% Compute go brrr Probably most material developments were CPU:GPU ratio expectations + CPU demand (from new AI releases). As well as optical developments from ECOC 2026 (as seen with $MRVL PR + others) Still a lot to catch up on.