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 

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 

Silicon photonics and co-packaged optics are clearly what's next, and the market is rewarding accelerating revenue growth. Some timelines may slip and a 20% pullback is possible, but holding legitimate parts of the value chain for three years should push these stocks to laughable valuations. x.com 

Photonics stocks look like a crowded rotation rather than a better bet than memory. Photonics has a smaller addressable market than memory and moves with it anyway. Buyers are driven by recency bias after Applied Optoelectronics' 90% recovery, traders liquidated in memory seeking higher-risk bets, and smaller companies with higher multiples. @therogueoracle adds that these stocks had massive runs and have not pulled back nearly enough, so they are more likely to chop sideways and down. x.com  … Show more

Lumentum, AXT and Coherent face potential delays to CPO and 800V, and their charts started flopping as if the stocks knew ahead of time. Per @BULLOFBRITAIN, citing a SemiAnalysis report, CPO and 800V could be pushed back to 2028–29 while NPO potentially accelerates, with caution urged on names including Lumentum. x.com 

Applied Optoelectronics' case now hinges on visible production progress. Its drop on OpenAI's revenue run-rate figures reflected an accounting question, not any change in laser or memory supply, per Carrio Research. If AAOI fails again next quarter and pushes its timelines out another quarter, it will be ugly. x.com 

Photonics stocks such as Coherent, Lumentum, Corning, Applied Optoelectronics and Ciena are priced on unknown future demand rather than current results. Lumentum's revenue has been flat, yet projections for the year ending June 2029 call for $12.8 billion, over 4x this year's $2.96 billion. That is great if true, but a lot can happen before then, especially any disruption to the data-center buildout boom. x.com 

Soitec now looks overextended after a rapid run, and a pullback is likely. The AI photonics bottlenecks behind the thesis are real, but it is hard to judge what premium each name deserves, which makes the stock hard to value at these levels. x.com 

Photonics stocks remain attractive as AI optical-component demand exceeds supply: Lumentum's CEO says the company cannot meet 70% of demand for some products through 2027 or 30% for others through 2028, with some components sold out into early 2029. The cited basket is LITE, MRVL, AAOI, COHR, SIVE and AEHR. x.com 

Applied Optoelectronics' durability beyond the pluggable cycle is in doubt: instead of staying euphoric on pluggable growth, the market is already asking what comes next. It still has a low starting valuation and accelerating fundamentals, but longer-term durability is missing, and the stock failed to bounce hard after a sharp drawdown. x.com