After huge gains in last week's trading, Poet Technologies (POET +2.60%) stock got hit with a massive pullback this week. The fiber-optics specialist's share price fell 51.6% over the period.
Poet stock has seen incredible volatility over the last couple of weeks in conjunction with developments connected to orders the company was supposed to have with a potentially crucial customer. The company's share price more than doubled on an apparent confirmation that the tech specialist had a contract with Marvell Technology, but its valuation gave up all of the gains after it was revealed that Marvell had backed out of the deal.
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Poet stock moves have been wild the last two weeks
In an interview with Stocktwits published April 21, Poet CFO Thomas Mika seemingly confirmed that the company had an order with Celestial AI -- a company that Marvell Technology had acquired this past February. The news caused the stock to more than double inside of a week, but the good times didn't last for long.
On April 27, Poet published an update announcing that it had received notice of the order's cancellation from Marvell on April 23. Marvell cited the order's disclosure being in violation of confidentiality agreements as a key reason for backing out of the deal. Expectations that Poet's technology would be integrated into Marvell's tech stack had been a driving bullish catalyst for the stock, and the cancellation news caused a dramatic pullback for the optics specialist's share price.
NASDAQ: POET
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What's next for Poet?
The Marvell order cancellation raises some big questions for Poet's outlook. While the disclosure of the purchase relationship with Celestial AI may in fact have been the primary reason for Marvell canceling the deal, there's very little visibility on the details of the order cancellation. While Poet said that it has secured an order from a separate customer worth roughly $5 million, Marvell's move to cancel the order suggests that Poet's tech wasn't essential for its strategies and raises questions about the optics specialist's commercialization outlook this year and beyond.
