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.com 

When wars drag on, the sensors and components inside weapons platforms make the money, which favors nLIGHT, LightPath and RFHIC. On March 3, after US and Israeli strikes on Iran, KOSPI crashed 7.24% while sensor makers such as RFHIC rallied alongside platform names. RF power amplifiers inside radars such as Cheongung-II's are the bottleneck, and RFHIC signed a KRW 50.6 billion amplifier contract with Raytheon Canada. The same InP, GaAs and GaN wafers go into lasers, radars and IR sensors. x.com  … Show more

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.com 

Gooch & Housego's H1 2026 trading update supports the thesis: a record £167.3M order book, up 16.5%, signals accelerating demand for photonics and laser systems. Revenue reached £81.9M with 9.1% organic growth, led by aerospace and defense, and management confirmed the semiconductor recovery is underway. Net debt rose to £37M from £29.9M on deliberate inventory and capex to meet the backlog. Trading is in line, but the order book suggests the breakout is just beginning. x.com 

Laser defense is arriving as regulators approve it, and nLIGHT is the US pure play on that shift. The FAA has greenlit laser sentry guns against attack drones in US airspace, per @zerohedge. nLIGHT is developing lasers up to 1MW, the strongest in development, at only about a $3.5B market cap, while AeroVironment, despite its Locust system, is too diversified for laser exposure. x.com 

Electro Optic Systems trades at about 2x backlog versus about 28x for nLight, despite growing faster at higher margins. Q1 cash receipts rose 220% to A$72.6M versus nLight's 55% revenue growth, gross margin is 63% versus 33%, and its A$726M backlog, 60-80% expected to convert in 2026-27, is 4.5x larger. After buying MARSS it owns the full counter-drone kill chain, its ITAR-free lasers are winning exports, and management guides to first profit in 2026. The chart is near a breakout above $9.60. … Show more

CACI International looks cheap at about 14x EV/EBITDA given its optionality in electronic warfare, Iron Dome-style missile defense and laser or optical space transmission. x.com 

nLIGHT's opportunities are huge, but supply-chain problems could last longer than the market prices in, so it is only worth adding on a significant drop. Weapons restocking should help its laser sensing business, and a new JLWS award brings $44M in 2026 with a $627M ceiling. But Q3 guidance is much weaker because China is holding optical components in customs, which the CEO called political football. At a rich multiple, it could languish in the $40s until the next big win. x.com  x.com  x.com  … Show more

nLight has pivoted from industrial lasers to a lean, high-margin defense play, with high risk and high reward. It is a core winner in high-energy laser defense, where its HELSI-2 prototype-to-production work drove record FY2025 revenue of $261 million, up 31%. It raised about $200 million in February 2026 to expand aerospace and defense capacity, cutting reliance on the cyclical industrial market. x.com