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IPG Photonics is a trade at best, not an investment, while Lincoln Electric is the preferred investment for cutting and welding. A 23% earnings drop would normally attract interest, but IPG is a retail photonics hype name whose stock is where it was 10 years ago, and the telecom division it sold to Lumentum years ago was small. Buying it would take hard facts of a proven business pivot, like Rambus's, showing the next 10 years won't look like the last 10. x.com x.com x.comÂ
nLIGHT is cheap and well placed to re-rate after being crushed post-earnings, and it is the far better long-term name. Its laser is the US military's favorite against drone swarms, being the cheapest to use and reportedly able to run 12 hours without a generator. It is not a particularly high-quality name. x.comÂ
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.comÂ
IPG Photonics' defense lasers are a stickier, higher-margin business even after a hollow beat sent the stock cratering. Its CROSSBOW lasers, built on IPG's fiber laser technology, neutralize drones up to 25kg, with an 8kW version reaching 2,500 meters in a demo. A $10 million Lockheed Martin follow-on order in February 2026 is small against $1 billion of revenue but shows Lockheed standardizing on IPG's laser for mobile counter-drone use. Defense/medical targets 45%+ gross margin. x.comÂ
Lumentum, the largest indium phosphide laser maker and supplier of the ultra-high-power laser in NVIDIA's Spectrum-X CPO switch, has a lot to gain from the silicon photonics roadmap. Its indium phosphide is sold out for years, which explains why its SEMICON Taiwan talk promoted gallium arsenide VCSELs for scale-up, rating them strong on 5 of 7 axes. VCSELs are its only incremental revenue in that period, even though they could displace its InP business. x.com x.comÂ
Lumentum stands to gain as the shift from copper to light inside AI data centers accelerates. Co-packaged optics is now in mass production, per TrendForce, with Nvidia shipping Spectrum-X CPO switches. Near-packaged optics is catching on fast; Lumentum CEO Michael Hurlston says its demand looks bigger than CPO's and came sooner, now late 2027 or early 2028. He sees about $40 a share of fiscal 2028 earnings power, above Street estimates, with none of CPO or NPO in the numbers yet. x.comÂ
IPG Photonics' old downtrend is over and its new uptrend is stable, making it more attractive than photonics peers that have already run far. Before the AI, photonics and defense wave, revenue was in persistent decline, profits and free cash flow were collapsing, and the company looked headed toward zero. Landing in the right sectors at the right time sparked a 200% rally, which earnings have since cooled. x.comÂ
Lumentum's selloff reflects how crowded photonics names had become: funds are selling relentlessly just by following Leopold, after a lot of dumb money bought without deep understanding. The $1,200 price target didn't even count margin expansion from 1.6T. Semis and the broader market remain bullish, as a healthy correction can't change the structure. x.comÂ
Lumentum is an essential, bottleneck-constrained supplier to AI clusters as optics replace copper at its physical limit, not a commoditized transceiver vendor, so it remains undervalued with a path well above $1,000 a share. Per CEO Michael Hurlston, capacity is sold out. Gross margins are nearing 48%, backlog stretches through 2028 and Nvidia's $2B partnership runs through it. The shift to scale-up CPO and indium phosphide lasers and a reported US ban on Chinese data center sourcing favor it. … Show more
The suppliers beneath the big nuclear deals going to Constellation Energy and Vistra get paid while the utilities get the headlines. GE Vernova supplies nuclear equipment, turbines and grid gear; Cameco uranium, fuel and Westinghouse technology; Centrus US enrichment and HALEU for the coming SMR boom; BWX Technologies nuclear components and reactor manufacturing. Oklo is an SMR developer and future fuel customer, while Fluor and Quanta Services add construction and power-infrastructure exposure. … Show more
IQE's outsourced epitaxy business is structurally disadvantaged because demanding optics customers want the whole chain under their own control. Big integrated players such as Lumentum and Applied Optoelectronics run their own reactors and want to control manufacturing conditions throughout. Shipping wafers to an outside fab for epi growth and back falls short of that ideal, so regardless of IQE's execution the business model is unappealing, even as @crux_capital_ turns more positive. x.comÂ
