(Getty Images)

POET Technologies is the newest low-price stock seeing record volumes and call activity thanks to retail traders

The optical communications tech company spiked Tuesday and is well on its way to another big gain on Wednesday.

10/8/25 9:36AM

POET Technologies is the new shiny toy for retail traders.

The company, whose optical communication tech aims to speed data transmission in AI data centers, soared 23% on Tuesday amid record volumes and call option volumes after announcing it raised $75 million from a single institutional investor through the sale of stock and warrants.

Shares are surging again in early trading on Wednesday, seemingly poised to break both of Tuesday’s aforementioned volume records.

It’s the most mentioned and most positively mentioned ticker on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets over the past 24 hours, per SwaggyStocks.

WSB Top Trending Stocks — Source: SwaggyStocks

“The massive growth of AI infrastructure represents an unprecedented opportunity for which POET is well prepared,” said Dr. Suresh Venkatesan, executive chairman and chief executive officer. “With a war chest of over $150 million in cash and no significant debt, we are now able to scale up our own growth ambitions in the market for advanced AI hardware solutions.”

Traders are seemingly eager to bet on the company’s short- and long-term upside via options:

The 10 most popular options contracts traded on Tuesday were all calls, some of which expire as soon as this Friday while others stretch out all the way to January 2028.

All the ingredients for a meme stock are here: r/WSB love, a long history that’s seen the shares trade above $25 at their peak, ties to a buzzy industry, and high options activity.

Tripleheavn WSB POET thesis — Source: r/WallStreetBets via tripleheavn

Luke Kawa6h

GameStop jumps in after-hours trading after CEO Ryan Cohen purchases another 500,000 shares

Ryan Cohen is putting his money where his mouth is.

The GameStop CEO bought another 500,000 shares of company stock for $10.8 million on Wednesday, per a filing.

The stock was trading higher on Wednesday thanks to Cohen’s purchase of 500,000 shares for roughly $10.6 million on Tuesday, and extended these gains in the after-hours session on this news.

“The Reporting Person believes that it is essential for the Chief Executive Officer of any public company to purchase shares of such company in the open market with his or her own personal funds in order to further strengthen alignment with stockholders,” per the filing. “The Reporting Person believes that any Chief Executive Officer who fails to do so should be fired.”

Cohen is poised to become even more financially enmeshed with GameStop’s stock and operating performance should shareholders approve a package that would tie his pay completely to ambitious targets for the company’s earnings and market cap.

The CEO now owns about 8.56% of shares outstanding.

Luke Kawa6h

AppLovin tumbles; company dismisses negative report as “false, misleading, and nonsensical”

AppLovin managed to finish Tuesday well off its lows after initially getting clobbered in the wake of an incendiary report published by CapitalWatch.

Nonetheless, shares are getting torched on Wednesday, ending down nearly 6%. An AppLovin spokesperson forcefully denied the allegations made by CapitalWatch, which included calling the ad tech firm “the ultimate monument to 21st-century new-type transnational financial crime.”

Per an emailed statement:

“We categorically reject the claims made in this report, which is rife with false, misleading, and nonsensical allegations. AppLovin’s public filings transparently disclose our material investments, global operations, and information regarding significant shareholders.”

“Claims that AppLovin facilitated money laundering or its products are used for unauthorized downloads are patently false. AppLovin functions within a broader ecosystem that includes major app stores, operating systems, and payment providers, and the apps monetized through our platform must be publicly available on the major app stores and subject to their independent review and enforcement. Economically, the money laundering theory is implausible: publishers receive only a portion of advertiser spend, meaning any attempt to ‘launder’ funds would require forfeiting a substantial share while creating a highly visible, auditable transaction trail across multiple independent companies. Accepting the report’s premise would therefore imply a systemic failure across the broader mobile advertising and app-store ecosystem, for which the report provides no evidence.”

AppLovin craters after report from CapitalWatch alleges it’s a money-laundering operation for “transnational criminal kingpins”

Per an emailed statement:

“We categorically reject the claims made in this report, which is rife with false, misleading, and nonsensical allegations. AppLovin’s public filings transparently disclose our material investments, global operations, and information regarding significant shareholders.”

“Claims that AppLovin facilitated money laundering or its products are used for unauthorized downloads are patently false. AppLovin functions within a broader ecosystem that includes major app stores, operating systems, and payment providers, and the apps monetized through our platform must be publicly available on the major app stores and subject to their independent review and enforcement. Economically, the money laundering theory is implausible: publishers receive only a portion of advertiser spend, meaning any attempt to ‘launder’ funds would require forfeiting a substantial share while creating a highly visible, auditable transaction trail across multiple independent companies. Accepting the report’s premise would therefore imply a systemic failure across the broader mobile advertising and app-store ecosystem, for which the report provides no evidence.”

Tasha Matsumoto, Nate Becker

Stocks jump as Trump walks back European tariff threats

All sector ETFs traded higher in the broad-based rally.

Benny, the mascot for the Chicago Bulls, performs during a break between the Bulls and the New Orleans Pelicans at the United Center on January 14, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.

Matt Phillips10h

Intel soars amid retail engagement, analyst chatter

Intel ripped toward a new 52-week high Wednesday, amid a flurry of activity in the options market and a couple of positive analyst assessments ahead of its earnings report due tomorrow.

Shortly after 11 a.m. ET, call options activity was roughly equivalent to the full-day average over the past 10 sessions. Bets on stock swings using call options have become a highly popular retail trade, suggesting that retail investors are getting interested in the shares ahead of the report from the partially nationalized American chip icon.

(That interpretation is buttressed by what we’re seeing on social sentiment-monitoring sites like SwaggyStocks, which at about 11:30 a.m. listed Intel as the fifth-most-mentioned stock on Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets forum over the past 24 hours.)

Wall Street analysts are also chattering about the stock, with RBC and Bernstein Research both writing about it in the last 24 hours.

RBC — which has a “sector perform” (or neutral) rating on Intel — said it expects a “slight beat and largely inline outlook” when the company reports after the close Thursday.

Bernstein’s Intel watchers — who have a “market perform” (also neutral) rating on the stock — seemed a bit more cautious, writing, “Overall numbers going forward still looking high to us. Fundamentals and valuation keep us sidelined.”

“If there is no memory, there’s no AI.”

POET Technologies is the newest low-price stock seeing record volumes and call activity thanks to retail traders

More Markets

GameStop jumps in after-hours trading after CEO Ryan Cohen purchases another 500,000 shares

AppLovin tumbles; company dismisses negative report as “false, misleading, and nonsensical”

AppLovin craters after report from CapitalWatch alleges it’s a money-laundering operation for “transnational criminal kingpins”

Intel soars amid retail engagement, analyst chatter

FLASH FORWARD

ByMattPhillips

WedJan 212026

Latest Stories