The photonics-as-AI-bottleneck claim has faded, leaving Lumentum facing more pain before the theme recovers. A large December options node sits at $600; the stock bot targets downside at $650 and $595, with $581 a possible liquidity sweep where smart money would buy instead of rushing in at $650 or $630. Most photonics companies will likely never come back. x.com 

Photonics stocks such as Lumentum, Coherent and Applied Optoelectronics look vulnerable because the trade is far too crowded. Today's reversal in the space could be the start of the next leg down. x.com 

Applied Optoelectronics is the best dip to buy after the photonics selloff took it from the mid-$200s to around $140. The market is misreading Meta's plan to sell compute as bearish for AI names. Memory names like Micron and SanDisk are near highs, where bad sentiment could hit harder, and Nebius takes the most direct hit from fears Meta becomes a competitor or cancels deals. All of these should bounce soon. x.com  x.com 

Optical component stocks such as Lumentum, Coherent, Applied Optoelectronics and AXT look early in an unwind, as a wave of new photonics paid newsletters signals a crowded narrative. Price pays; narratives do not. x.com 

Interconnect, not compute, is now the binding constraint on AI clusters. Copper, pluggable optics and CPO will coexist for years, so the strongest names span both paths or own the tightest bottleneck. Top five: Credo, the fastest-growing full stack; Applied Optoelectronics, the 800G/1.6T ramp; Marvell, broadest but richly priced; Lumentum, the laser chokepoint; Tower, the foundry bet. Coherent, Amphenol, Fabrinet, GlobalFoundries, TSMC and Broadcom also gain. Astera Labs is pricier and narrower. … Show more

Rising 1.6T switching demand favors optical suppliers, though their execution risks vary. Bank of America says the market could grow ~101% annually through 2030. Marvell's leading DSPs and Lumentum's supply-short 200G EML lasers are lowest risk; Applied Optoelectronics' capacity expansion and Fabrinet's customer concentration make them medium risk. Aeluma remains pre-commercial, while Lightwave Logic's polymer modulators are a high-risk moonshot despite its TSM partnership. x.com 

Corning is low conviction because being a one-of-one supplier critical to photonics does not guarantee it benefits as much as others in the supply chain. Corning should do well long term, but other, higher-conviction stocks offer better exposure to the photonics era. x.com 

Lumentum requires paying up heavily for a company that is not yet making money. Revenue grew 109% year over year, but it trades at about 25 times annualized sales, and it is growing less than memory makers at ten times their valuation. @ZeekTyt cites Lumentum's CEO expecting to supply only about 30% of requested laser demand as CPO and NPO ramp in 2027, with balance around 2029-30. x.com  x.com 

Coherent is the most potentially undervalued photonics play because the market has not caught up to what it has become. Its March 23 demonstration with Tower Semiconductor of 400 Gbps per lane on a silicon modulator, aimed at 3.2T transceivers, is not priced in. Revenue rose from $1.58B to $1.69B with $1.78B guided, and it was first to mass-produce 1.6T transceivers. Despite running from $61 to $336, it trades at a fraction of Arista's and Broadcom's valuations. x.com  x.com 

Broadcom's photonics exposure is getting too little market attention, supporting a bullish view of the stock. x.com