$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.

$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.

I've had better days, having constant headaches which is a bit rough. I did have some fun channel checks though recently. Some guy I met by the bathroom yesterday claimed to be $SPCX Cursor CEO. I'm not good with faces so idk if he was lying or not. Also had some discussions about beamformer technology with an industry executive, it's apparently more important than I gave it credit for.

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.

Okay thing about it for a second: $AKAM gets a big deal over 7 years. But in order to actually execute on the deal: They gotta buy a ton of CPUs and memory… So these upstream component supply chains are probably the larger beneficiaries over the ones in the headline. But can’t give advice in terms of buying something

Nope for $AKAM. But if you look at what’s needed probably CPUs/Memory #1. So your $ARM / $INTC / $AMD thematically (AMD probably higher beta to this company in specific). Then your Samsung / $MU / SK Hynix are your obvious memory beneficiaries. Component procurement is done through $JBL, which potentially benefits their own supply chain if they’re doing networking too.

$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…

I mean $LITE / $COHR did have $NVDA funding $2B for their buildout. But Lumentum seems primarily self-funded from operating cash flow. So I'd expect $AAOI to follow suit once they start ramp up around H1 2027. 2026 is just that high capex buildout period. My criticism was over visibility and financing methods during this timeframe.

It's very frustrating since... what if the $600m August ATM finishes, then they file another $600M ATM in October? I'm happy to support financing for their buildout, but there's 0 clarity to the end of the ATM loop or how much funding they actually need. If they just said "we need $3.5B", mixes LTAs, private placements, ATMs to get this done, there wouldn't be as much confusion. I'm super excited operationally, but how they do financing is very concerning.

$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.

I would have a much more favorable view on $IREN after they finish their $6B ATM in terms of stock performance (I think they're like 41.5% through). I think Mirantis acqusition would materially shift a lot of perception of how they rank relative to $CRWV, $NBIS, Lambda, Tensorwave, and others in terms of cluster performance once they finish integration. I've always started software side of things is actually a moat (backing up what Coreweave CEO was saying), which was what $IREN lacked before. But M&A to get that gap fixed is probably the most bullish part of what they've done.

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.

It’s mainly thesis tracking mode now since I layed out most of my ideas H1 from $INTC, $ARM to $MU. Or $SIVE to $AAOI or $AXTI or $NBIS Only two recent ones were $ESMT for legacy memory trade and $CCXI for humanoids but aside from that it’s just seeing if they get validated over time Stuff like large body substrates or CXL or MLCC with newer discovery, I’ve already published earlier on

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.