CLOSING BELL
Happy Monday

After yet another wild weekend in D.C., the market woke to a red day, but as the trade petered on prices hit record highs.

The S&P 500 broke out just 0.12%, enough to hit yet another record close, despite no good news out of canceled talks in Iran, and a scary political violence event at the White House Correspondents Dinner that luckily ended without fatalities.

Iran is proposing a new deal to lift their side of the blockade, Axios reported, but it would move nuclear disarmament talks further in the future. Meanwhile in stocks, OpenAI and Microsoft are no longer going exclusive, and the belle of the ball ChatGPT can see what other fish there are in the sea. It’s a major massive week for earnings reports for big tech giants. First up is a story of how POET Tech flew into the trending slot on Stocktwits as the community took in a major price crash.

STOCKS
Optical Tech Maker POET Sees Blinding Price Crash, Why Is Stocktwits Bullish?

POET Teralight 1.6T 2xFR4 and DR8 Tx and Rx Optical Engines

The top trending stock on Stocktwits Monday had something unique that made it stand apart from the regular trending names: the Stocktwits community might have taken a major role in the recent volatile news cycle. Poet Technologies, a fan favorite for the past couple of weeks as light-based laser communication for datacenter tech became all the rage, was crashing Monday.

The RIP: $POET ( ▼ 47.35% ) cratered 47% on Monday, its sharpest single-day drop on record, $1.13B in MK wiped. Prev close implied ~$2.3B cap, now sitting at $1.21B. Marvell cancelled all Celestial AI purchase orders dating back to 2023, according to a press release. Short seller Wolfpack Research had started the beef alleging just $2.3M in revenue since 2020. Poet CFO spoke to Stocktwits last week, biting back at the report, while shorts piled into the stock. Monday, the firm said Marvell said the deals off.

 “Marvell indicated that the Company had made disclosures of information related to the Purchase Order and shipping information in contravention of its confidentiality obligations,” a spokesperson from the firm said in a statement.

Just last week, CFO Thomas Mika sat with Stocktwits’ Michele Steele and pitched his firm as the next step in datacenter evolution. Its previous relationship with a firm called Celestial AI is now moving on to a relationship with Marvell, Mika said then, Marvell being a big name in the datacenter tech world.

“We’re a supplier to Marvell now that they’ve acquired Celestial AI, who has been a customer of ours for a couple of years, and what we supply to Celestial AI are light sources, high bandwidth, multi-frequency, high-power light sources that light up the photonic fabric that Celestial AI talks about,” Mika told Stocktwits. He doubled down on near-term revenue: “We’ve got a purchase order from them that we’re gonna ship against, and we intend to continue that relationship and build it over time.”

It looks like that next chapter may look different, the stock losing a whopping $1.2B in market cap Monday. On the news Stocktwits retail jumped to extremely bullish in sentiment, so maybe there is more here than meets the eye.

The whole saga started after the company jumped ship to the AI world, and Wolf Pack Research, a short-report group, alleged it was not a good move. The short report claimed the company had switched from niche tech interest to niche tech interest seven times since 2017- which follows my own path, but I’m a reporter, not a major tech firm. 🤣 

By the short report’s own admission, POET is in fact a current developer of optical light source engines that sit in transceivers.

Mika, celebrating this exact light source tech and railing against this short report, told Michele Steele POET enables chips to communicate in data centers. Last year no one seemed to care at an optical fiber conference in San Fran, Mika said, but this year everyone’s ecstatic, and they were now bringing their wares to Marvell.

Finally we get back to Monday: The next update from POET was in a press release where he firm said Marvell told POET the deal was off on April 23, two days after the Stocktwits TV interview dropped.

The short volume chart tells a story: Short volume for the stock was flat and tiny leading up to the interview and massive stock plunge. Mar 30 through ~Apr 13 saw short volume near 500k-1M shares. Then it starts creeping. Then Apr 20-24 it explodes — we’re talking 6M–12M+ shares shorted daily, right as the price ran from ~$5 to $15.10.

Short volume from Moommoo

As shorts covered their own positions last week, the price jumped to record highs, but when real news dropped that might hurt that inflated stock price, the stock cratered. It’s like a short squeeze that sped up to full speed and then into a brick wall. In this case, shorts finally won, the trap door opened today, and longs got wrecked.

So in light of this calamity, why is retail on Stocktwits not worried? Well for one thing, retail saw Marvell’s deal cut as proof there was a deal in the first place: POET has actual fuel in the tank, and other hyperscaler firms may come to the table even if Marvell wants out.

Two, users pointed out Marvell acquired its very own optical firm the day after the interview went live. Users argued this was a precision off-ramp hand picked by a company looking for a way out. This is an unconfirmed allegation from Stocktwits users**

Other users were frustrated with the leadership of the firm and the situation as a whole, a whopping cut to the valuation of the stock not easy to reason with no matter how you spin it.

<blockquote align="center" class="stocktwits-embedded-post" data-origin="https://stocktwits.com" data-id="651542662"

$POET Marvell acquired an in-house optical technology company (Polariton) on April 22, then canceled its external POET supply relationship on April 23. Whether these two moves are directly connected — i.e., Marvell using POET’s NDA breach as a convenient exit ramp once they had in-house capability — is a question many investors are now asking.

Thomas Mika, CFO, told Stocktwits he was unable to comment on the situation on Monday, “Regrettably, I am unable to respond to your questions, though I very much wish I could,” Mika said via email.

What do you think happened? Join the Conversation on $POET ( ▼ 47.35% ) Now —>

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DEAL NEWS
OpenAI Off The Leash 🔓

Microsoft and OpenAI rewrote their partnership agreement on Monday, scrapping the software giant’s exclusive right to sell OpenAI’s models and handing the ChatGPT maker permission to cut deals with cloud rivals. $MSFT ( ▲ 0.05% ) fell about -1% on the open.

“The greater predictability in the amended agreement strengthens our joint ability to build and operate AI platforms at scale while providing both companies the flexibility to pursue new opportunities,” OpenAI and Microsoft said in a joint statement Monday.

The RIP: Microsoft loses exclusivity over OpenAI’s IP and models, effective immediately. $MSFT stops paying OpenAI a revenue share on resold products; OpenAI keeps paying Microsoft a revenue share through 2030, capped at an undisclosed ceiling. Microsoft retains “primary cloud provider” status with first access to new OpenAI products on Azure. Microsoft holds a 27% ownership stake in OpenAI from last year’s restructuring. $MSFT shares have lost ~20% over the past six months, while $AMZN is up +17% and $GOOGL ( ▲ 1.73% ) up +30% in the same stretch.

“We do not believe this revised agreement should come as a major surprise to investors at this point,” Evercore ISI analysts wrote Monday, noting Microsoft has increasingly signaled interest in a multi-model strategy.

The exclusivity clause was always a slow-motion problem for OpenAI: it needed Amazon’s cloud capacity, but Microsoft reportedly weighed legal action over an AWS deal announced earlier this year. Monday’s agreement resolves that standoff without blowing up the partnership.

The tickers most exposed: $MSFT faces more OpenAI-competitive pressure across Azure and M365; $AMZN is the clearest near-term winner as AWS can now host OpenAI products without legal overhang; $GOOGL gets a more fragmented cloud-AI market it can compete in; and SaaS names like $CRM and $NOW already down -31% YTD are watching OpenAI become an enterprise software competitor in real time. 🔓

Which cloud or SaaS name is winning in your book? Join the conversation →

TRENDING ON STOCKTWITS
Pops & Drops

⚡️ -indicates a name trending on Stocktwits today.

• $SNDK ( ▲ 8.11% )  SanDisk: ripped +8% after AI storage demand lifted pre-earnings sentiment

• $ALB ( ▲ 5.95% )  Albemarle: climbed +6% after RBC and BofA raised lithium price targets

• $MU ( ▲ 5.61% )  Micron: jumped +6% after Melius Research initiated with a Buy

• $RUM ( ▲ 10.58% )  Rumble ⚡: surged +11% after Northern Data AI deal acceptance period active

• $JOBY ( ▲ 6.35% )  Joby Aviation ⚡: popped +6% after NYC’s first eVTOL demo flights completed

• $ONDS ( ▲ 3.79% )  Ondas ⚡: climbed +4% on no specific catalyst; retail-driven move

• $NVDA ( ▲ 4.0% )  Nvidia ⚡: climbed +4% on broad AI chip sector bid

• $AFRM ( ▲ 2.21% )  Affirm ⚡: jumped +2% on no specific catalyst; consumer credit names lifted

• $GOOGL ( ▲ 1.73% )  Alphabet ⚡: climbed +2% on no specific catalyst; broad tech bid

• $VZ ( ▲ 1.55% )  Verizon ⚡: jumped +2% on defensive rotation amid macro uncertainty

• $QCOM ( ▲ 0.95% )  Qualcomm ⚡: gained +1% riding broad semiconductor sentiment

• $MRVL ( ▼ 3.71% )  Marvell ⚡: slid -4% on profit-taking after recent AI chip run

• $BBBY ( ▼ 4.81% )  Bed Bath & Beyond ⚡: fell -5% on no specific catalyst; retail sentiment trade

• $DLTR ( ▼ 5.54% )  Dollar Tree: fell -6% as tariff and traffic headwinds continued to weigh

• $ARM ( ▼ 8.06% )  Arm Holdings: tumbled -8% on profit-taking after Friday’s +15% Intel-fueled surge

• $DPZ ( ▼ 8.84% )  Domino’s Pizza: cratered -9% after Q1 EPS of $4.13 missed the $4.29 estimate; U.S. same-store sales up just +0.9% vs. +2.7% expected

THE CASHTAG AWARDS
The BIGGEST night in finance. May 4th. NYSE.

The Cashtag Awards are built by the Stocktwits community and it wouldn’t be the same without you in the room!

We’re offering a limited number of fully comped tickets for members who want to show up, represent, and help make this night as special as it should be.

Want to celebrate with us on May 4th?

ST EDITOR’S PICKS
What We Are Reading and Watching 🗞️ 👀 

WHAT’S ON DECK
Tomorrow’s Top Things 📋

Macro: JOLTS Job Openings (Mar) (10:00 AM ET), CB Consumer Confidence (Apr) (10:00 AM ET). 📊
Pre-Market Earnings: $KO Coca-Cola, $GM General Motors, $SPOT Spotify Technology, $UPS United Parcel Service Inc Class B, $JBLU Jetblue Airways Corp, +16 more. ☀️
After-Market Earnings: $SBUX Starbucks Corp, $HOOD Robinhood Markets Inc Class A, $V Visa Inc Class A, $BE Bloom Energy Class A Corp, $TMUS T-Mobile US Inc, +18 more. 🌙

P.S. You can listen to all of these earnings calls on Stocktwits.

Links That Don’t Suck 🌐

🤑  Fed expected to stand pat this week amid ongoing uncertainty from Iran conflict

😨 Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman head to court in high-stakes showdown over AI

✈️ United CEO Scott Kirby Says Pursuit of Possible American Airlines Merger is Over

💰️ China orders Meta to unwind $2 billion purchase of AI startup Manus

📺️ Trump shooting latest: Suspect to appear in court today after president denies ‘pedophile’ allegation in manifesto

👀 Correspondents’ Dinner suspect charged with attempted assassination

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