Imagine this: you are running your first-ever official marathon and manage to break the mythical two-hour mark, a feat that had never officially been done before, but despite all those firsts, you finish second. We’re still breathless just from watching the historic finish of the London Marathon, which saw Sabastian Sawe take first place with his even faster time of 1 hour, 59 minutes, and 30 seconds wearing a fresh pair of $450 “supershoes.”
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 managed to close at new record highs on Monday, while the Russell 2000 closed just shy of its record, though in the absence of further developments for peace talks, gains in stocks were muted. This week brings earnings from Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple, as well as the Fed’s interest rate decision.
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Marvell cancels order with POET, citing breach of confidentiality, and sends POET tanking |
This is an own goal for the ages.
POET Technologies cratered 47% on Monday after announcing “the cancellation of all purchase orders received by the Company from Celestial AI, including the ones for initial production units first disclosed (the ‘Purchase Orders’) by the Company in a press release on April 25, 2023.” |
- Marvell Technology, which acquired Celestial AI, provided written notice of the cancellation on Thursday, citing “disclosures of information related to the Purchase Order and shipping information in contravention of its confidentiality obligations.”
- We can zero in on the likely cause here: the interview that POET CFO Thomas Mika did with Stocktwits TV last week.
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“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,” he said. “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 as being the communication device between GPUs and one GPU and another GPU, a GPU and a memory device.”
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Now, it’s likely that Mika provided a useful excuse for Marvell to cancel a contract it may not have wanted, thanks to its own in-house capabilities.
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On Friday, the day after POET received notice of the cancellation and one trading day before that information became public, a record $1.1 billion changed hands trading the stock. That high-water mark lasted only one session, with more than $1.3 billion in dollar volumes through 12:30 p.m. ET.
“The Company remains focused on executing its strategic priorities and advancing product development within the AI and optical networking markets to meet increasing demand,” per POET’s press release on Monday. “This effort also involves fulfilling product deliveries for other customers, including a recently disclosed purchase order with another technology company with a value of approximately $5 million.”
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Apple is on its way to becoming the biggest smartphone seller in China |
Apple CEO Tim Cook earlier this year hailed the company’s holiday quarter as “the best iPhone quarter in history in Greater China,” with sales jumping 38%.
New data for the first quarter of 2026 suggests Apple’s success in the world’s largest smartphone market is continuing, with shipments up double digits even as overall smartphone sales in China declined.
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- That growth was fueled in part by the iPhone 17 itself, whose new design and colors helped Apple capitalize on a massive upgrade cycle.
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The result: Apple’s smartphone shipment market share jumped to 19% in Q1 — typically a weak quarter for Apple — putting it just behind China’s own Huawei.
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And analysts expect Apple’s string of luck to continue, even as Cook, who is largely responsible for Apple’s success in China, steps down as CEO.
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“Apple will very likely become number one in China,” Francisco Jeronimo, vice president of client devices at IDC, told Sherwood News, noting that in the first quarter, the gap between Huawei and Apple’s market share was less than 1% — a vulnerability exacerbated by recent launch delays for Huawei’s latest Mate 80 series. He estimates that Apple could take the top spot as early as the end of the year.
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Apple became such a strong brand in China partly because the iPhone is manufactured in China, a move driven and nurtured by Cook that not only made Apple a household name there, but unintentionally set off a wave of copycats that also further boosted Apple’s cachet.
“Manufacturers in China learned how to build iPhones and started replicating that design,” Jeronimo said. “That gave consumers an option to buy a device that is not an iPhone, but looks exactly as an iPhone.” Meanwhile, those who could afford the real thing bought the actual iPhone. |
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The result was a powerful dual effect: Apple’s design became the standard across China’s smartphone market, while the iPhone itself remained a premium, aspirational product. Building its devices in China also gave Apple the relationships and footing needed to operate in the lucrative market in the first place. Even as cheaper look-alikes spread, they reinforced demand for the real thing, helping cement the iPhone as a status symbol that consumers continue to trade up to, even in a slowing market.
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Altman: We do “weird” things so there will be “universal prosperity” |
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