🚨Big buying day for my port!
Took 3 new positions:
$LASR $OPTX and $POCI
In this post I want to break down my quick thesis for each company, what excites me, what concerns me, and what I am watching for
For each position my intention is to DCA over weeks/months and manage the position as needed due to earnings, geopolitical climate, macro concerns etc.
I do not believe that I am catching the bottom on any of these names, but I want exposure now
I believe that each of these names carries downside risk, some more than others. Please do your own due diligence. None of this is a recommendation
1) Lets start with $LASR (nLight)
This company has been on my brain ever since I started digging into this sector. How could it not with the ticker $LASR? What a grab. I look at nLight a similar way I looked at $LITE as it ran up. Just a steady grower, plenty of tailwinds, great execution etc. And that's why I wanted to get in now rather than waiting for a pullback. Will a pullback happen? Probably. But again going back to the Lumentum comparison, that chart pretty much just kept going. And I don't want to miss out on that possibly being nLight's story too. Their potential is massive.
Some things that excite me:
The Counter-Drone Momentum: As of January 2026, the DoD is moving aggressively toward directed energy as the only cost-effective solution for drone swarms. nLIGHT’s 50kW-class lasers are integrated into Stryker vehicles for the DE M-SHORAD program and are now being viewed as the primary defense against low-cost drone threats. They recently booked a $34.5 million contract specifically to ramp this iteration 2 system for the Army.
The Megawatt Scaling: They are currently scaling their architecture to hit megawatt-class power under the $171 million HELSI-2 contract. This puts them in a rare category of suppliers capable of building rugged, conex-compatible lasers that can take down cruise missiles and hypersonics, and not just small UAVs. What is the valuation for something like this?!
Institutional Validation: Analysts have hit a tipping point in the last 10 days. Stifel assumed coverage yesterday with a $60 price target, calling the company a linchpin national security asset. Needham also raised their target to $48 following the record revenue guide. The market is finally rewarding $LASR as the vertically integrated pure-play for the directed energy supercycle.
The Revenue Beat: On January 13 they pre-announced a massive Q4 revenue beat, guiding to $78M–$80M which is well above the top end of their previous guidance. This was driven by a 50% year-over-year surge in aerospace and defense revenue, which is now the dominant part of their business mix.
Some concerns I have and my justifications:
Valuation and Share Price Surge: Pretty straight forward here. Stock has been on a ripper, up nearly 700% from the lows last year, and the market is pricing in a lot of growth. I work through this by thinking of this position as an investment into the supercycle with a balance sheet that allows them to survive long DoD procurement cycles where smaller players might die out. They have about $116 million in cash and almost zero debt, which is a massive safety net. For companies like this, for my own investment I personally don't put too much stake in the valuation (within reason). I know I could get some push back for that, but how do you truly put a price on what they are trying to achieve? I don't think 2B is even close to it.
The Path to GAAP Profitability: Revenue growth is great, but I would love for them to get into true GAAP profitability. They hit a non-GAAP profit milestone last quarter ($0.08 per share), but they still posted a GAAP net loss. I am ok with this lag for now as long as the spend goes toward scaling their megawatt-class architecture and strengthening the team. They just added a heavy-hitter to the board on January 6, Gerald Haines, who is a defense tech veteran.
Customer and Program Concentration: If for some reason there is a shift in military spending priorities away from high-energy lasers toward conventional kinetic weapons, their pipeline could take a massive hit. They are also dealing with some industrial drag on their commercial side as those markets stay soft. I see the defense trend going the opposite direction, but it is something that I will keep an eye on.
Ok now moving on to Syntec Optics $OPTX
They are moving away from being just a specialized shop and into mass production for some of the biggest names in LEO satellites and defense. It’s a classic micro-cap story where the tech is proven, but the factory floor is still catching up to the demand. I like the vertical integration here as they do everything in-house in Rochester, which gives them a massive edge on speed and cost compared to traditional glass optics.
Some things that excite me:
The Space Momentum: They just booked a fresh $1.9 million order for LEO satellite optics due for delivery by the end of February 2026. They’ve already shipped over $2.6 million in space optics in 2025, and management thinks they could nearly triple those deliveries in 2026 as these satellite constellations start to scale.
The AI Soldier Pivot: On January 6, they announced a major ballistic optics order for the military’s next-gen AR headsets. This is one of the biggest opportunities in their 25-year history. They are providing the tech that displays battlefield intel directly in a soldier's field of view, drone feeds, thermal imaging, and target cues. Andruli?? Lots of people are speculating so and I can see why.
Operational Inflection: They are aggressively scaling their Rochester facility, recently adding night shifts to boost throughput. Revenue grew 6% sequentially to $7 million last quarter, and they are guiding for $7.3M–$8M in Q4 as these space and defense orders start to hit the tape. They are also implementing new ERP dashboards to move their production yield from the 40-50% range up toward a 95% target.
Some concerns I have and my justifications:
The Private Bank Dependency: This is the most dire part of the story. The company is currently on a ventilator that the CEO, Al Kapoor, controls. He personally bailed them out of a bank default in November with $1.3M of his own cash. This is definitely concerning and should not be understated. My justification here is the 83% ownership. He is effectively the company’s private bank, and he’s incentivized to do whatever it takes to prevent a bankruptcy that would wipe out his massive stake first.
The Internal Control Red Flag: Nasdaq notified them three separate times in 2025 about delinquent filings. This sloppy back-office history is a red flag for me. My justification is that the shift to CBIZ CPAs as their new auditor (following the acquisition of Marcum's attest business) and the hiring of Dean Rudy (ex-Xerox) as CFO is specifically meant to professionalize the reporting as they chase bigger Tier-1 defense contracts.
The $8 Million Liquidity Gap: They have about $12 million in liabilities due within the next 12 months, but only about $6 million in combined cash and receivables. That is a massive hole. I’m watching the order velocity here. If they don't announce another two or three $2M+ wins by mid-year to bridge that gap, the balance sheet will be massively strained.
The Yield Trap and Labor Costs: Adjusted EBITDA was nearly zero last quarter because they are spending heavily on hiring and night shifts. They are essentially pre-paying for growth. I'm okay with this for now, but if the Gross Margin doesn't snap back to 30% by mid-2026, the debt load, even if it's insider debt, becomes a significant anchor on the stock price.
Lastly, there is the price volatility. Just take a look at the chart. Lots of downside risk. But there is also clearly demand to the upside. You get a few big name contracts in here and this thing could explode. So while I have concerns, mostly regarding their financial dealings, I believe they are doing what they can to clean it up and I don't want to miss out on the potential upside. This is where my DCA strategy will come in to play as well.
And lastly, $POCI
If $LASR is the steady giant and $OPTX is the factory-floor recovery, $POCI is the pure structural pivot play. I’m always looking for companies that have a foundational business that the market has already priced in, like their legacy medical device work, but are massively expanding into a higher-multiple business like Aerospace & Defense that the market hasn't noticed yet. That is the $POCI story. They are currently trading at just ~1.6x sales because the market sees a medical shop, but they are transitioning into high-volume manufacturing for some of the most critical A&D programs in the country.
Some things that excite me:
The Aerospace Multiplier: In the last quarter, their aerospace revenue surged by over 800%. They are sitting on a $9M+ aerospace backlog and a total backlog of nearly $18M. They are shipping production-level components for U.S. Air Force AR systems and jet engine borescopes. As this becomes a larger part of the mix, the valuation should theoretically re-rate from a "medical equipment" multiple to a "defense tech" multiple.
The Infrastructure for Scale: They recently moved into a massive 72,500 sq. ft. facility in Littleton. This was a 3x increase in floor space specifically designed to handle the high-volume medical and defense contracts they’ve already won. They just completed a line expansion that allows them to increase production throughput by another 50% starting this month.
The 2026 Profitability Guide: Management has been very clear about their FY 2026 targets: $25 million+ in revenue and their first move into positive Adjusted EBITDA (~$0.5M). If they hit those numbers, we are looking at a total bottom-line swing of over $4 million compared to last year.
Some concerns I have and my justifications:
The Gross Margin Yield Trap: This is the biggest hurdle. Last quarter, gross margins sat at a measly 14.2% because the costs of ramping up these new high-volume lines are heavy. They need to get back to 30% to hit their profit targets. My justification is that this is a temporary scaling pain. They’ve already renegotiated pricing with key customers to account for these yield shortfalls, and I expect to see those margins climb sequentially throughout the year.
Dilution and the Cash Tightrope: They currently have about $1.4M in cash and a quarterly burn that is still significant. I’m watching this closely because I would like to not see another raise. My justification is that the previous $5.1M raise was productive growth capital used to build the Littleton facility, and as the $18M backlog ships, the cash flow should start to cover the OpEx.
The Show Me Gap: The market is skeptical. They just posted a ($1.2M) EBITDA loss, so hitting that $0.5M full-year profit target requires a massive second-half ramp. I’m okay with the skepticism for now because it’s keeping the valuation low, but the Feb 12th earnings report needs to show a narrowing of those losses to keep the thesis alive.
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I’m viewing these three as my starters a unified Optics Basket for 2026. You have $LASR as the stability anchor, $OPTX as the high-leverage yield play, and $POCI as the micro-cap inflection story. Each one represents a different way to play the massive tailwinds in directed energy, LEO satellites, and next-gen defense tech.
I’ll be watching the upcoming earnings dates for all three like a hawk!
I have only been tracking these names for about a month now. I DO NOT know all the ins and outs. As I get more intimate with them, I will cover in more detail
So please feel free to also drop any thoughts, key pieces missing here for any of these companies you track!
Again, not financial advice yall
