When the Captain Sells His Shares, the Ship Still Sails

In the dim glow of terminals and trading screens, where fortunes rise and fall on the weight of a signature, Oleg Khaykin, the man at the helm of Viavi Solutions, moved 73,442 shares through the open market on December 3rd and 4th, 2025. The transaction, logged in the dry ink of an SEC Form 4, netted $1.3 million. A modest ripple, they’ll say. Just a man tending to his purse. But beneath the numbers, there’s a story the reports won’t print-the quiet unease of the laborers beneath the machine, the ones whose livelihoods are tethered not to stock splits, but to the daily grind of solder, fiber, and screen glare in network labs from Shenzhen to San Diego.

The Weight of Numbers

Metric	Value
Shares sold	73,442
Transaction value	~$1.3 million
Post-transaction shares (direct ownership)	1,921,191
Post-transaction value (direct ownership)	~$33.6 million

Transaction value based on SEC Form 4 weighted average purchase price ($17.36); post-transaction value based on December 4, 2025 market close ($17.50).

What the Ledger Doesn’t Say

What proportion of Oleg Khaykin’s direct holdings was sold?
A little over 3.68%. Not a flight, but a trimming. Like a sailor cutting frayed rope before the storm. He keeps nearly two million shares in his name-$33.6 million of skin in the game. And another 80,476 linger in his spouse’s account, whispering of plans beyond the quarterly report.
How does this compare to past moves?
It’s larger than his old habits-a median of under 8,000 shares before 2024-but dwarfed by the 154,646 shares he shed the day before. Since August 2024, the median sale has been well over 100,000. This was not panic. This was routine. The clockwork of wealth management, polished and cold.
Why now?
The stock had climbed 68.4% in a year. On December 5th, it flared to $18.55-a peak. He sold just before. Timing so precise it smells of calculation, not coincidence. The wealth builder in him knows: you don’t harvest in a drought. You harvest when the field is golden.
What’s left in the vault?
He still owns 0.86% of the company outright. Enough to matter. Enough to influence. Enough to sleep well while assembly-line engineers in Kuala Lumpur work double shifts to meet the surge in demand from data centers and the avionics plants feeding the ravenous hunger of artificial intelligence.

The Machine and the Men Who Feed It

Metric	Value
Price (as of market close 12/04/25)	$17.50
Market capitalization	$3.91 billion
Revenue (TTM)	$1.15 billion
1-year price change	68.40%

* 1-year price change calculated using December 4, 2025 as the reference date.

The Cogs Turn

Viavi builds the unseen backbone: test instruments, monitoring software, optical security filters-the things that keep networks from crumbling under their own weight.
They sell to telecom giants, governments, and OEMs-faceless buyers who demand perfection but never meet the technician who calibrated the last sensor.
Their customers span continents, but the real cost is paid not in dollars, but in focus, in overtime, in the silent toll on those whose names won’t ever stain the glossy covers of investor briefings.

Yes, the company stands tall-$3.91 billion in value, $1.15 billion in revenue. It serves the titans of data centers, the aerospace and defense sector, the endless sprawl of global communications. The fiscal year ending June 28, 2025, brought $1.08 billion in income, up 8%. The first quarter of the next year roared with 26% growth. The AI boom is real, and Viavi is in the supply line. But growth forged on overtime shifts and relentless output has a price. It’s just not one they book as an expense.

What the Builder Sees

As a builder of wealth, I do not flinch at a CEO selling shares. It is natural. It is prudent. If you own property, you sell a plot when the market soars. Khaykin did no more. The ship sails on, guided by revenue, not ritual.

But the price? Over 200 times earnings. That is faith dressed as finance. It is not investment-it is worship at the altar of momentum. A wise builder waits. He watches. He lets the dust settle. For every man who gets rich buying high, ten lose their shirts trying to catch the same falling knife.

Viavi is strong. Its place in the network’s nerve center is earned, not gifted. It will profit from the digital surge. But the stock? It dances on the edge of reason. The wealth builder in me sees the potential-and the peril. I would wait. For a stumble. For a dip. For the moment when fear creeps in and others flee. That is when stone is laid, not when the crowd cheers.

The workers will keep working, regardless. Their paychecks don’t care about P/E ratios. They care about hours, about safety, about whether the furnace in their housing block works in winter. They are the unseen foundation. While the captain takes his cut, they keep the engines running. That, too, is part of the balance sheet. It just isn’t printed. 🛠️

Glossary

Open-market sale: The sale of securities on a public exchange, rather than through a private transaction.
SEC Form 4: A required filing disclosing insider trades by company officers, directors, or major shareholders.
Weighted average purchase price: The average price paid per share, weighted by the number of shares in each transaction.
Direct ownership: Shares held directly by an individual, not through trusts, funds, or indirect means.
Outstanding shares: The total number of a company’s shares currently held by all shareholders.
Total return: The investment’s price change plus all dividends and distributions, assuming those payouts are reinvested.
Network Enablement (NE): A business segment focused on products for building and optimizing communication networks.
Service Enablement (SE): A business segment providing solutions for monitoring and managing network services.
Optical Security and Performance Products (OSP): A segment offering products that enhance optical network security and performance.
OEMs: Original Equipment Manufacturers; companies that produce parts or equipment used in another company’s end products.
Avionics industry: The sector involved in the development and production of electronic systems for aircraft.
TTM: The 12-month period ending with the most recent quarterly report.

2025-12-07 07:23