Israeli Photonics Startups

 
Within weeks in April 2026:

• DustPhotonics → Credo Technology — $1.3 billion
• Teramount → Molex — $430 million

Two Israeli photonics startups acquired for a combined $1.73 billion — both solving different but complementary problems in the same AI data center photonics stack. Israel's silicon photonics ecosystem has just been significantly absorbed into the global supply chain.

The remaining independent Israeli photonics player of note is NewPhotonics — worth watching as the next potential acquisition target.

Interesting. And April 2026 is not yet over!

Roof collapsed - engineer (91) jailed

 

A decade after the Iron parking garage collapse disaster in Tel Aviv, the court sentenced engineer Hanoch Tzahar (91 years old) to imprisonment and a fine, after he was convicted of causing the deaths of 6 workers through negligence and the injury of 23 additional workers.

Engineering is a high-risk profession, especially after 90. 

Sanchez: El Lado Bueno de la Historia

 

The President of Spain, Sanchez, assumes the leadership of the world progressive movement (he is head of the International Socialism organization). He calls it a fight for democracy, exactly like the fishwrap HaAretz. The Brazilian Lula has conceded the position. Bibi and Donald Trump are Sanchez's enemies. Per contra, Hamas, Hizballah, the Ayatollahs, and so on are on the correct side of history and "democrats".  "Vomitabile", to apply Giorgia Meloni's expression.  

Babies are not showing up

Social Security needs 2.1 births per woman to stay solvent. US is at 1.6. $39T in debt needs the next generation to service it. That generation isn't showing up at the numbers required.

That is a funny way of talking about the central problem of our generation. I am an only child, have no siblings, and no relatives. That is typical of the Hungarian Jewish post-WWII generation. That's why I doubt the common estimate of 60,000 Jews in Hungary. They may be only a small fraction of it. 

Wall Street Expert

 
Claude the AI is being advertised as a Wall Street Expert. I asked it about Elbit. In less than a second, it answered.

ESLT closed at $869.79 on April 16, down 3.2% on the day, with a 52-week range of $369 to $1,016. GuruFocus So from its March 17 all-time high of ~$1,016, the stock has pulled back roughly 14% this month — a meaningful correction.

The bull case for recovery

The company's $28.1 billion backlog reflects future unrealized revenue, meaning that even if the Iran conflict winds down, demand for Elbit's systems remains strong, owing to rising defense spending globally — with 72% of that backlog coming from international customers. Yahoo Finance The war proved Elbit's systems in the field, which typically accelerates export orders.

JPMorgan recently raised its price target on ESLT from $580 to $930, while keeping a Neutral rating. Robinhood That's a significant upward revision from a major bank, signaling that even cautious analysts see the fundamental story as intact.

The next earnings report is scheduled for May 19, 2026 StockInvest.us — that's the most concrete near-term catalyst. Given that Q4 2025 results beat estimates by a wide margin and triggered a 16% jump, a strong Q1 could easily reprice the stock upward.

The bear case / risks

Insider activity is a yellow flag: insiders sold $61.9 million worth of shares in the last three months with no buying activity GuruFocus — people inside the company are not adding at these levels.

The median analyst price target is $882.50 — implying modest downside from the current price, with 1 Buy, 4 Hold, and 1 Sell among tracked analysts. Ticker Nerd The consensus is essentially: good company, full valuation.

The P/E ratio of ~77x is significantly higher than the 5-year median of 44x, and valuation models like GF Value place the stock at 150% above estimated fair value GuruFocus — so the premium is real.

The bottom line

The stock is caught between two opposing forces: strong and growing fundamentals on one side, and peace-talk headwinds + stretched valuation on the other. The most likely near-term recovery trigger is the Q1 earnings release in May — if it shows continued backlog growth and margin expansion, that could reset sentiment. But I'd note this as analysis, not investment advice — you know the geopolitical picture better than most analysts sitting in New York.

My opinion: Let me think it over, I don't know.

We have your address

 

Russia published a list of factories supplying Ukraine's drone parts. 

Explaining that they are targets.

Johannesburg leaks 47% of its water

 A big part of Phillips' diagnosis focused on how water services are organised. The law separates two roles; the water services authority (WSA) – to oversee and regulate services – and the water services provider (WSP), responsible for distributing water. Johannesburg Water is the WSP and the municipality is the WSA. Phillips is the city's water boss.

• In theory the separation is meant to improve accountability. In practice, Phillips stated, accountability is weakened as water services are absorbed into the wider municipal bureaucracy. Responsibility is spread across multiple departments. Procurement sits in one place. Staffing decisions in another. Billing and revenue collection elsewhere.
• WSP’s are supposed to be self-sustaining, feeding their revenue from water sales back into day to day operations, maintenance and repairs. This model is breaking down as municipalities lose 47% of the water they buy before it generates any revenue due to leaks, illegal connections and poor metering. In addition, municipalities can legally use this revenue to fund other municipal functions.
• As a remedy, Phillips proposed a move towards a utility model in which providers control their revenue, are professionally managed and accountable, with control over the functions needed to recover costs and deliver services.
• Legislative reforms, including the Water Services Amendment Bill and National Treasury proposals on ring-fencing revenue, would, in his view, promote further improvements.
• He said Johannesburg needs a new approach to water provision, one that aligns responsibility with authority and supports stable, accountable service delivery. The critical issue is to replace current, dysfunctional structures with effective ones. Any model will fail unless it incorporates three elements: competition, incentives and regulations that hold operators to clear standards.

I understand he is proposing something like the Israeli Taagidey Maim, which has led to a vast new bureaucracy.