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J. Edward Moreno

Optics stocks rise after Lumentum CEO says demand is strong with “no end in sight”

Lumentum rose more than 5% in premarket trading on Friday, and lifted its competitors with it, after the company’s CEO told Bloomberg that demand for its optical components is through the roof.

Chief Executive Officer Michael Hurlston told the outlet Friday that the company is “falling further and further behind the demand” and would be sold out through all of 2028 within two quarters.

“The capex numbers from the US hyperscalers are enormous and there seems to be no end in sight,” he said.

The comments also bolstered Lumentum’s peers, with Applied Optoelectronics and Coherent also in the green in early trades this morning.

These companies make optical components that use light, rather than traditional copper interconnects, to move data within and between servers in data centers, a technology increasingly seen as critical for scaling artificial intelligence capacity.

Earlier this month, Nvidia said that it would invest $2 billion apiece in Coherent and Lumentum to develop their advanced optics technologies.

Nvidia-Backed Lumentum Sees AI Filling Orders Through 2028

Nvidia-Backed Lumentum Sees AI Filling Orders Through 2028

“The capex numbers from the US hyperscalers are enormous and there seems to be no end in sight,” he said.

The comments also bolstered Lumentum’s peers, with Applied Optoelectronics and Coherent also in the green in early trades this morning.

These companies make optical components that use light, rather than traditional copper interconnects, to move data within and between servers in data centers, a technology increasingly seen as critical for scaling artificial intelligence capacity.

Earlier this month, Nvidia said that it would invest $2 billion apiece in Coherent and Lumentum to develop their advanced optics technologies.

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Matt Phillips

Intel shares are officially a thing

April most definitely has not been the cruelest month for US chip giant Intel or its shareholders.

The stock is on a remarkable run that’s made it the best performer in the S&P 500 for the month, posting a gain of nearly 43% shortly after 11 a.m. ET Friday. That’s outdone AI darlings like Sandisk, Lumentum, Ciena Corp., Coherent, and Seagate Technology Holdings.

In fact, the monthly view actually underplays the extent of the stock’s performance. Over the eight sessions that ended yesterday — which includes March 31 — the stock was up just shy of 50%. That’s by far its best eight-day streak over the last 30 years.

Investors have eaten up Intel’s announcements this week of partnerships, first with Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Terafab project, and separately, with Alphabet on developing custom chips for Google Cloud’s AI infrastructure needs.

More broadly, the seemingly relentless demand for computing capacity and chips related to AI seems to present, at least, the prospect of Intel actually solving the long-standing problems at its contract chipmaking business — known as a foundry — that have weighed on the business for years.

Oh, being partially nationalized by the US government amid an increasing global focus on ensuring secure supply chains for crucial technologies like semiconductors probably doesn’t hurt either.

(In case you're keeping track, the US bought a nearly 10% stake in Intel for about $8.9 billion in late August of last year. Today, that stake is worth about $27 billion.)

Luke Kawa
4h
Anthropic’s making AI boom again — and picking the winners

More compute = more revenues, and going custom has its own particular consequences for different AI stocks.

4th of July Fireworks in Long Beach
markets
Matt Phillips

Palantir’s slide continues, but President Trump tries to help

Investors were selling Palantir shares again on Friday, with the stock falling as much as 6% before stabilizing, thanks to an assist from the White House.

At its worst moments, the sell-off put the retail favorite on track for its worst weekly loss (more than 16%) since February 2021.

But Palantir has powerful friends: President Trump posted on Truth Social celebrating the company’s “great war fighting capabilities,” sending the stock higher, though it remained in the red.

Truth post on PLTR
(Truth Social)

The overall negative sentiment seems to stem from Anthropic’s powerful new AI models, at least judging from the latest epistle from Palantir bull Dan Ives at Wedbush Securities:

“Anthropic released a new product around multi-agent orchestration, which continues to add more headwinds to the software sector. While Anthropic is hitting a new scale with the company now at $30 billion [annual run rate], up from $9 billion at the start of the year, we believe this is not at the expense of PLTR’s business as the company continues to accelerate both its US commercial and government businesses.”

Of course, the specter of AI undermining of other software companies has been a well-established theme for months. And it’s clearly at play in the market on Friday, with Palo Alto Networks, ServiceNow, CrowdStrike, Zscaler, Figma, and Atlassian continuing to get clocked on negative AI implications.

But the recent inclusion of Palantir among the pack of potentially replaceable software providers is newer, with the view popularized by well-followed market commentator Michael Burry’s pronouncement — since deleted — that Anthropic is “eating Palantir’s lunch,” which seemed to contribute to the downdraft for Palantir today.

The stock dove through its 50-day moving average in recent days, underscoring the sputtering momentum for what has been one of the market’s biggest winners over the last couple years. Long-term holders are still up massively, with the stock up about 1,400% over the last three years.

124% 🚗
Max Knoblauch

China exported more than twice as many electric vehicles (and plug-in hybrids) in the first quarter of 2026 as it did in the same period last year, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

New energy vehicle exports surged 124% year over year, as major players like BYD and Chery ramped up overseas efforts to combat lower domestic sales. Tesla’s China business also boosted exports, shipping 164% more EVs than the same period the year before.

Nio is ramping up export efforts as well, with a goal to deliver “several thousand” EVs overseas this year and have a presence in 40 countries. Still, the automaker exported 271 vehicles in Q1 — less than half of a percent of the company’s total deliveries.

According to the CPCA, April will see the country’s automotive industry continue its “slow recovery.”

Salesman Moving Sales on Chart Up

Tech dramas, rather than the Iran war, will be the earnings season focus

Energy earnings will offset slowdowns elsewhere. But it’s still all about Big Tech.

Matt Phillips7h

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