Mmmg

Lumen $LUMN is up +18% this morning. As usual, we were ahead of the herd. This is the thesis I shared with our members on April 15th...

$VIAV - getting tight above 5ema. would not be surprised, if tomorrow it tags/U&R's 5ema and goes.. have a position from 4/30, will look to add as long as $50 holds on closing basis.

Market seems wrong on $ANET They don't do scale-up. Scale-out is without competition and scale across is growing rapidly despites some narrative on competition and alternatives. The numbers are strong in their key sectors and demand follows. Yes margins are a bit hurt on prices due to memory shortage. Okay. Fair. But that's about it. Revenue growth and guidance beat expectations, their core business is strong and cash generation still is growing as revenues acceleration on slightly lower margins - which is temporary, means more cash. Doesn't feel like it deserves this reaction.

Trade idea: MEC Company (TYO: 4971) at just $1B MC: (I’ve had a position since last year, but now synthesizing + sharing my latest research) > A sole provider of molecular bonding chemistry that facilitates metal-to-substrate interface > Mkt share >90% in Flip-Chip Ball Grid Array (FC-BGA) substrates needed for AI accelerators > The only ones that provide the chemical solution to stop organic substrates from cracking under high thermal loads in modern GPUs > Able to leverage its structural monopoly to raise prices MEC is effectively a single point of failure for the entire semis industry. If their chemicals aren’t applied, a $40k GPU may as well be used as a paperweight since it’ll just become obsolete = huge pricing power. > MEC’s monopoly is even more obvious in their control over the back-end packaging stage which is a huge bottleneck They have super-roughening chemistry that forms tiny topography on copper surfaces to ensure resin adheres permanently. MEC’s competition (e.g. MKS Atotech & JCU) other solutions, but they lack MEC’s laser-focus on high-end interfacial roughening. Substrate makers like SEMCO, Ibiden, and Shinko are fundamentally dependent on MEC: The cost of MEC’s chemicals is a rounding error of the total module value. Yet its performance is the only thing standing between a high-yield production run and a multi-billion $ catastrophe. The impact is huge pricing power for MEC… MEC’s Phase 2 Medium-Term Management Plan (Feb 2026) aggressively upgraded FY2027 op. margin to 30% (from 20%) - they’ve moved away from a traditional cost-plus model toward one that captures a premium for its crucial role in the industry. Major customers like SEMCO have stated that demand for AI-grade substrates exceeds production capacity by 50%+, forcing them to raise their own selling prices by ~10%. And since MEC’s chemicals are "designed-in" to the R&D roadmaps of Ibiden and Shinko yrs before mass production, switching to a competitor is basically impossible during a chip’s lifecycle. That structural advantage is now accelerating as the industry enters the "Glass Age" in mid-2026: As $INTC and Samsung move to glass substrates for 1.4nm-class nodes, traditional physical roughening becomes obsolete due to signal integrity loss at 1.6T speeds. On financials: 0 debt and $51.3M cash - they’re self-funding their new Kitakyushu plant that’ll add 30,000 tons of annual capacity by Dec 2026. Perfect timing for peak growth of glass-core adoption in 2027. And confirmed by their CEO in Feb 2026: "Today, increasing demand for generative AI is driving increased need for semiconductor mounting technology that achieves higher performance and lower energy consumption. We provide global markets with the chemical product processes that are essential to such advancements in leading-edge technology". This essentiality is mirrored in Digitimes' report: "FC-BGA has been selling out since the second half of last year... negotiations for additional price increases appear to be proceeding in a favorable direction." And on top, an industry exec said: "With FC-BGA demand continuing to grow, led by global Big Tech, supply from existing corporations is not enough…” In terms of supply chain standings: 1/ Specialty raw materials & Feedstocks: - Japanese chemical names like Mitsubishi Gas Chemical & Adeka providing acids that MEC optimizes into concentrates + Nittobo for T-glass fiver cloth 2/ MEC Co - 90%+ monopoly in FC-BGA adhesion promoters 3/ Substrate fabs - Ibiden, Shinko and SEMCO - all tethered to MEC due to their chemicals being designed-in during 18-24 mth certification cycles = makes switching rivals impossible without risking yield crashes. 4/ Advanced packaging & foundries - TSMC (CoWoS), Intel (Foveros), and Samsung depend on MEC’s process to facilitate transition to glass-core substrates - as MEC provides the only qualified molecular interface capable of maintaining 1.6T integrity for 1.4nm nodes 5/ Hyperscaler - $NVDA (Blackwell/Rubin), $AMD, and custom silicon designers at $AMZN and $GOOGL Big fan of the company given huge power over the supply chain rn, but understand why they may be too far upstream for some w/ a less diversified port.

$GLW Just finished up the call Some notes >2 new hyperscaler deals (similar in size + duration as Meta) > Lots of excitement around next week's event > Will be discussing new products + springboard updates > Sees robust demand across solar + optical > Some solar drag in Q2 due to facility shutdown/transfer Full report coming later

$GLW Tightening up on the right side of this base. Investor day on Wednesday.

$GLW Do we think they hit ATH after Wednesday? I am expecting a significant TAM expansion