Shares of POET Technologies $POET ( ▼ 3.02% ) are up double digits in early Monday trading as aggressive call buying puts the small-cap optical name back on traders’ radar. The move comes without a major headline, but the options tape is doing plenty of talking.
Options heat turns up fast
Within an hour of the opening bell, call volume in POET was already running well above its five-session average for an entire day. That kind of early imbalance typically signals speculative interest rather than long-term positioning, especially in a stock with a heavy retail following.
A familiar setup for traders
POET became a retail favorite in early Q4, just before speculative tech trades broadly cooled off. The stock saw record call volume of nearly 600,000 contracts on October 7, marking its last major momentum surge.
AI credibility still in the background
The most recent spike in options activity before today came on December 3, one session after Marvell $MRVL ( ▲ 1.78% ) acquired Celestial AI, a customer of POET. That deal gave investors some validation that POET’s optical interconnect technology could play a role in data center and AI infrastructure builds, even if today’s move is being driven more by trading flows than fundamentals.