nLIGHT's aerospace and defense business is booming, which made this a great report. The caveat is longer term: revenue growth will slow as it divests one of its two slow-growth or shrinking business lines, and algorithms may punish the shares after the Q3 or Q4 report, a problem for October 2026 or early 2027. x.com 

LightPath Technologies trades at 6.3x FY2027 analyst revenue, half nLIGHT's 13x on essentially the same small-cap defense photonics setup. NDAA Section 834 requires the Pentagon to drop optical glass from China, Russia and others by 2030, and LightPath holds the only US chalcogenide glass licensed from the Naval Research Laboratory. After Q3 revenue rose 109%, analysts lifted FY2027 revenue 27% to $106M. Risks include G5 earnout charges, a $200M shelf and a plant in China. x.com  x.com 

nLIGHT looks close to solving the parts issue that cut $1.5 billion from its market cap, judging by its aggressive hiring. It is urgently trying to fill up to 85-90 manufacturing positions on a worldwide workforce of 800, including a 24/7, six-shift push for cleanroom fab specialists. A manufacturer facing an existential supply halt would not hire like that, so it should be ready to hit the ground running once the issue is fixed. x.com  x.com 

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 

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

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 

Lumentum's EPS is expected to grow from $8 in FY26 to $34+ by FY28, nearly 4x, as AI optics demand explodes, with Nvidia's backing behind it. The stock is forming a massive cup pattern. x.com 

Lumentum is seeing very bullish demand signals across near-package optics, lasers and links between data centers. Management sees NPO expanding the optical TAM, with about six core customers and revenue of $50M–$100M in Q4 2026 rising above $100M in Q1 2027. Lasers remain undersupplied: EML orders run into 2027 at rising prices. Lumentum holds about 80% of pump lasers, which it aims to quadruple by early 2028 as AI clusters spread across sites, with contract visibility over three years. x.com  … Show more

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.com 

Lumentum's AI demand is no longer a future story; it is already showing up in the numbers. Cloud and AI revenue more than doubled year over year, with components up 103% and systems up 123%. 200G EML shipments hit a record above 25% of EML revenue, CPO laser shipments are growing toward meaningful revenue by year-end, pump lasers rose 80% under long-term supply deals, initial 1.6T transceivers shipped, and the OCS ramp is on track under a multi-year, multibillion-dollar agreement. x.com