AAOI, LITE, COHR, MRVL Stocks Bounce Back Overnight: Why AI Photonics Stocks Drew Attention Today

Tech and semiconductor stocks dropped in regular trading on Tuesday, taking a breather after an early-week rally fueled by the U.S.-Iran peace deal.

• Applied Optoelectronics, POET Technologies, Lumentum Holdings, and Coherent rose 2.3% to 1.3% in overnight trading after a sharp drop in Tuesday’s session.
• Photonics stocks have attracted strong demand and rich valuations as hyperscalers ramp up spending on optical networking gear to ease AI data center bottlenecks.
• Stocktwits sentiment for AAOI shifted to ‘bullish’ from ‘neutral,’ while the view on others remained ‘bearish.’

Photonic and optical component stocks rebounded in overnight trading heading into Wednesday, recovering alongside the broader chip sector after steep declines earlier in the day, a cooling-off following the early-week rally sparked by the U.S.-Iran peace deal.

Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI), POET Technologies (POET), Lumentum Holdings (LITE), and  Coherent (COHR) rose between 1.3% and 2.3% in overnight trading, while Marvell Technology (MRVL) added 3.3%.

In the regular session on Tuesday, Applied Optoelectronics declined 10.8%, POET dropped 9.2%, Lumentum dropped 8.5%, and Coherent dropped 7.2%. Shares of Marvell, which bolstered its photonics capabilities through the acquisition of Celestial AI, fell 9.8%. 

The selloff tracked broader weakness across semiconductor stocks, with names such as Intel and Advanced Micro Devices also declining, dragging the iShares Semiconductor ETF (SOXX) down 6% for its second-steepest drop since October.

The move comes as investors shift their attention to the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate decision due on Wednesday.

Tuesday’s weakness notwithstanding, photonics stocks are seeing massive demand and valuation gains as hyperscalers increase spending on optical transceivers, switches, and fiber-optic cabling to address speed bottlenecks in AI data centers.

Optical Components Stocks In Focus

Data centers are increasingly turning to optical data transmission technology to replace copper connectors, which restrict high-frequency data transfer.

At the Computex conference in Taipei, Taiwan, earlier this month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang highlighted photonic technology and companies such as Coherent, Lumentum, and Corning at various points in his presentations, triggering a rally in their stocks the next day. To be sure, Nvidia has previously invested in all three companies as part of broader strategic and commercial partnerships. Huang also endorsed Marvell as the “next trillion-dollar company.”

Retail Favors AAOI

“$LITE $COHR $AMD 10% down or up in a day is now normal business. Stock going down 10% in a day used to be a huge deal just few years ago,” a trader wrote on Stocktwits. 

The retail sentiment for AAOI jumped to ‘bullish’ from ‘neutral’ amid high message volume. The sentiment remained ‘bearish’ for POET and COHR, and ‘’extremely bearish’ for LITE.

“$AAOI The scale behind that is concrete. AAOI exited Q1 at roughly 100,000 transceivers a month and guided to over 930,000 a month of 800G and 1.6T by the end of 2027, more than half of it from Texas, while expanding laser fabrication capacity by about 350% over the same window,” a trader wrote. 

“Since each of the harder 800G and 1.6T modules carries four or more lasers, that unit ramp is really a laser ramp, which is the precise reason owning the fab is the part that matters,” they said.

Year-to-date, AAOI is up a staggering 390%. LITE is up 138%, COHR is up 107%, and POET is up 100%. MRVL stock rallied sharply after Huang’s endorsement and is up 228% in 2026.

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