DAVE FINANCES RESEARCH
These 3 Overlooked AI Infrastructure Stocks Have Big Money Behind Them
Original research note | September 2026
| Research premise
Celestica, Coherent and nVent combine rising institutional ownership with strong operating momentum and direct exposure to different physical bottlenecks in AI infrastructure: networking/compute, optical connectivity, and power/cooling. |
Research Snapshot
|
Company |
Ticker |
Inst. ownership |
Net shares added QoQ |
Latest revenue growth |
Latest adj. EPS growth |
|
Celestica |
CLS |
69.4% |
+7.52M |
+62% |
+83% |
|
Coherent |
COHR |
97.3% |
+3.88M |
+34% |
+74% |
|
nVent |
NVT |
91.5% |
+5.25M |
+53% |
+69% |
Institutional investors are moving deeper into the physical infrastructure behind artificial intelligence. Celestica, Coherent and nVent are three less-obvious beneficiaries where recent SEC filings and operating results are moving in the same direction.
The easiest way to invest in artificial intelligence has also become the most crowded. Nvidia, Broadcom and the hyperscalers dominate the headlines, while trillions of dollars in expected data-center spending are creating a second layer of winners that rarely receive the same attention.
That second layer is where this screen began.
Rather than starting with three stock names and searching for a bullish narrative afterward, Dave Finances screened for companies showing three characteristics at the same time: increasing institutional share ownership, accelerating exposure to AI and data-center infrastructure, and operating results strong enough to explain why professional investors may be paying attention.
The result was Celestica (NYSE: CLS), Coherent (NYSE: COHR) and nVent Electric (NYSE: NVT). They operate in different parts of the stack. Celestica builds networking and compute infrastructure for hyperscalers. Coherent supplies the optical technology needed to move data at increasingly high speeds. nVent provides electrical protection, power and cooling infrastructure that becomes more important as rack densities climb.
The institutional signal is notable. Using aggregated Form 13F data for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, institutions added approximately 7.52 million net shares of Celestica, 3.88 million shares of Coherent and 5.25 million shares of nVent quarter over quarter. Those filings are backward-looking snapshots, not real-time trades, but the direction of travel is unusually consistent across all three companies.
Chart 1. Net institutional shares added quarter over quarter. Source: Q2 2026 Form 13F data aggregated from SEC filings. Reporting period ended June 30, 2026.
What “Big Money” Means in This Analysis
Institutional ownership can be useful, but it is easy to misuse. A rising number of funds does not prove that a stock will rise, and a 13F filing does not tell investors why a manager bought a position. Index rebalancing, hedging, factor exposure and portfolio construction can all produce buying that has little to do with a fundamental view of a company.
There is another limitation: Form 13F is delayed. U.S. institutional investment managers generally disclose quarter-end holdings after the quarter has already finished, so the data should be treated as evidence of positioning at a point in time rather than a live trading signal.
For that reason, the institutional data in this article is used as a starting filter, not the investment thesis itself. The more important question is whether the businesses are producing results that could justify the accumulation.
| Company | Institutional Ownership | Net Shares Added QoQ | Latest Revenue Growth | Latest Adjusted EPS Growth | Primary AI Exposure |
| Celestica (CLS) | 69.4% | +7.52 million | +62% | +83% | Hyperscale networking and AI compute |
| Coherent (COHR) | 97.3% | +3.88 million | +34% | +74% | Optical connectivity and photonics |
| nVent (NVT) | 91.5% | +5.25 million | +53% | +69% | Power, protection and liquid cooling |
Chart 2. Institutional ownership at the end of Q2 2026. Source: Form 13F data aggregated from SEC filings. 13F ownership should be read as a delayed snapshot.
Celestica: Hyperscaler Demand Is Rewriting the Growth Profile
Celestica may still be remembered by some investors as an electronics manufacturing services company with structurally modest margins. Its current financial profile looks very different.
In the second quarter of 2026, Celestica reported revenue of $4.70 billion, up 62% from a year earlier. Adjusted EPS rose to $2.54 from $1.39, an increase of roughly 83%. Its Connectivity & Cloud Solutions segment generated $3.81 billion of revenue, up 84% year over year, while Hardware Platform Solutions revenue reached approximately $1.9 billion and increased 58%.
The important detail is what is driving that growth. Celestica said demand for data-center networking, including its switch programs, was a major contributor. Enterprise revenue increased 167% year over year as an AI/ML compute program with a hyperscaler continued to ramp.
This is not a company merely attaching the “AI” label to an existing industrial business. AI infrastructure is visibly changing its revenue mix.
Management raised its 2026 outlook to $20.5 billion of revenue and $11.30 of adjusted EPS, representing expected year-over-year growth of 65% and 87%, respectively. Celestica also said it expects revenue growth in 2027 to accelerate beyond the rate currently anticipated for 2026, supported by customer demand and new program wins.
Institutional positioning has moved with those fundamentals. Aggregated Q2 13F data shows institutions holding roughly 79.8 million Celestica shares, up by approximately 7.5 million shares, or 10.4%, from the previous quarter. More than 500 reporting institutions increased their positions during the period.
The company then made an unusually aggressive capital decision in August. Celestica sold 11.13 million new common shares at $310 each after underwriters exercised their full option, generating approximately $3.39 billion in expected net proceeds. The stated purpose was to fund working capital and capital expenditures required to support what management described as unprecedented multi-year AI infrastructure demand.
That offering cuts both ways. It gives Celestica considerably more capacity to invest without stressing its balance sheet, but it also dilutes existing shareholders. Investors should therefore judge the raise by the return Celestica earns on the new capital, not simply by the size of the demand opportunity.
Valuation is another restraint. At a September 25 closing price of about $365.59, the stock trades at roughly 32.4 times the company’s $11.30 adjusted EPS outlook for 2026. That is not an obvious bargain. The thesis increasingly depends on Celestica converting exceptional demand visibility into another year of rapid growth while preserving margins.
What would weaken the thesis? A slowdown in hyperscaler capital spending, weaker-than-expected utilization of the new capacity, customer concentration or signs that networking and AI compute demand is being pulled forward rather than sustained would matter more than short-term price volatility.
Coherent: Nvidia’s $2 Billion Investment Changes the Context
Coherent provides a different form of AI infrastructure exposure. The bottleneck it addresses is not compute itself but the movement of data between increasingly powerful processors, racks and data centers.
That makes optics strategically important. As AI clusters scale, copper connections become more difficult to use over longer distances and at higher bandwidths. Optical components, transceivers, lasers and related photonics become a larger part of the network architecture.
Coherent’s latest results show that transition moving through the income statement. Fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 revenue reached $2.05 billion, up 34% year over year. Non-GAAP EPS increased to $1.74 from $1.00, while non-GAAP gross margin expanded by 215 basis points to 40.2%.
The segment data is even more revealing. Datacenter & Communications revenue was $1.615 billion in the June quarter, up from $1.018 billion a year earlier. For the full fiscal year, that business generated $5.275 billion of revenue versus $3.755 billion in fiscal 2025.
Management expects the momentum to continue. For the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Coherent guided to $2.2 billion to $2.4 billion of revenue and $1.85 to $2.05 of non-GAAP EPS. The midpoint of the revenue range would represent another sequential increase from the June quarter.
But the most unusual evidence of strategic interest arrived before those results. In March 2026, Nvidia invested $2 billion directly in Coherent, purchasing 7,788,161 shares at $256.80 each in a private placement. The companies also expanded their collaboration around product families related to co-packaged optics for next-generation AI infrastructure.
That is materially different from a passive fund appearing in a 13F filing. Nvidia is one of the largest beneficiaries and architects of the AI data-center buildout, and its investment tied capital to a commercial relationship in a technology area it expects to matter.
Traditional institutions were also adding exposure. Aggregated Q2 filings show institutional holdings of approximately 172.5 million Coherent shares, up about 3.9 million shares quarter over quarter. Roughly 64% of reporting institutions increased their positions during the quarter.
The signal was not unanimous. FMR was a significant seller, while Capital International Investors, Norges Bank and other managers added exposure. That disagreement is useful rather than inconvenient: it is a reminder that “institutional buying” should never be presented as a single Wall Street opinion.
Coherent also continues to invest in the technology roadmap. In September it showcased new AI-connectivity products spanning co-packaged optics, near-packaged optics, high-speed pluggable transceivers and a new integrated optics platform called PhotonLink.
The risk is that expectations are already elevated. At roughly $295.78 per share on September 25, Coherent traded at about 52.7 times fiscal 2026 non-GAAP EPS of $5.61. If an investor simply annualized the midpoint of the company’s first-quarter fiscal 2027 EPS guidance, the multiple would fall to roughly 37.9 times that run-rate figure — but that annualization is a Dave Finances calculation, not company full-year guidance.
What would weaken the thesis? Slower optical-content growth inside AI networks, capacity additions arriving ahead of demand, pricing pressure in transceivers or delays in the migration to higher-speed optical architectures could make the current valuation difficult to defend.
nVent: Power and Cooling Are Becoming AI Bottlenecks Too
nVent is the least obvious technology company of the three. Its core products protect, connect and manage electrical systems. That sounds more industrial than digital, but the distinction is becoming less useful as AI data centers consume more power and generate more heat.
Higher-density computing requires more sophisticated enclosures, electrical distribution, thermal management and liquid cooling. nVent is increasingly positioned at that intersection.
Second-quarter 2026 sales reached $1.471 billion, up 53% year over year and 47% organically. Adjusted EPS rose 69% to $1.45. Free cash flow more than doubled to $167 million.
The Systems Protection segment, which includes key data-center products, generated $1.072 billion of quarterly sales, up 70%, with 62% organic growth. Adjusted return on sales improved to 23.2% from 21.7% a year earlier.
Management responded by significantly raising 2026 guidance. nVent now expects reported sales growth of 37% to 39%, organic growth of 32% to 34%, and adjusted EPS of $5.00 to $5.10.
The institutional flow is broad. Q2 13F data shows approximately 148.0 million nVent shares held by institutions, up by about 5.25 million shares quarter over quarter. Of 972 reporting institutional investors, 556 increased positions while 287 reduced them. Large additions included Norges Bank, Jennison Associates, T. Rowe Price Investment Management and Alkeon Capital Management.
nVent is also using acquisitions to deepen its data-center exposure. In August, the company agreed to acquire Maverick Power for $1.75 billion, with up to another $550 million of contingent cash consideration tied to performance. Maverick supplies engineered power distribution systems for data centers and is expected to generate approximately $700 million of 2026 revenue.
nVent said the acquisition should be accretive to adjusted EPS in the first year after closing and valued the initial purchase price at approximately 11.5 times anticipated 2026 adjusted EBITDA. The strategic logic is clear: nVent is moving from selling individual protection and cooling products toward a broader power-and-cooling platform for data-center customers.
The financial trade-off is also clear. The company expects to use cash and new debt to fund the transaction, meaning investors are accepting greater integration and leverage risk in exchange for faster exposure to a high-growth market.
At approximately $164.44 on September 25, nVent trades near 32.6 times the midpoint of its 2026 adjusted EPS guidance. As with Celestica, the market is already charging investors for a meaningful portion of the expected growth.
What would weaken the thesis? A sharp reduction in data-center project activity, acquisition integration problems, margin pressure in Systems Protection or a significant increase in leverage without corresponding earnings growth would all undermine the case.
Chart 3. Latest reported year-over-year revenue and adjusted EPS growth. Celestica: Q2 2026. Coherent: Q4 FY2026. nVent: Q2 2026. Sources: company filings and earnings releases.
The Common Thread: AI Spending Is Moving Into the Physical Stack
The most interesting conclusion is not that three institutions bought three stocks. It is that the same capital-spending cycle is appearing in three separate layers of infrastructure.
Celestica is benefiting when hyperscalers deploy networking switches and AI compute platforms. Coherent is benefiting when those systems require more optical bandwidth. nVent is benefiting when the resulting data centers require more power distribution, protection and cooling.
That relationship makes the group useful as a way to test the durability of the AI infrastructure cycle. If demand remains strong across compute platforms, optical connectivity and power systems simultaneously, it suggests the investment boom is broader than GPU purchases alone.
It also creates a shared risk. All three companies now depend, directly or indirectly, on continued capital deployment by hyperscalers and data-center operators. A material slowdown in AI infrastructure spending could therefore hit several layers of the stack at the same time.
Big Money Is Not the Same as a Cheap Entry
The institutional data supports the idea that sophisticated capital is participating in these names, but it does not settle the valuation question.
Celestica and nVent both trade near 32 times their respective 2026 adjusted EPS guidance using September 25 closing prices. Coherent is more expensive on trailing adjusted earnings, although its current quarterly guidance implies a materially higher earnings run rate.
That means the research conclusion is more nuanced than “institutions are buying, therefore investors should buy.” The stronger observation is that institutional accumulation and accelerating operating results are occurring at the same time across three companies exposed to different AI infrastructure bottlenecks.
For investors evaluating the next phase of the AI trade, that makes these stocks worth monitoring. The key question is no longer whether the market has discovered them. Their valuations suggest it has. The question is whether their earnings can continue rising quickly enough to justify how much discovery has already been priced in.
| Dave Finances Research Takeaway
Celestica, Coherent and nVent all show a combination that is difficult to dismiss: expanding institutional ownership, rapid earnings growth and direct exposure to physical bottlenecks created by AI infrastructure. The evidence is strongest as a watchlist signal rather than a stand-alone buy signal. At current valuations, continued execution matters more than the fact that large investors were accumulating shares last quarter. |
Research Methodology and Data Notes
This article uses company earnings releases, SEC filings, company investor-relations materials and aggregated Form 13F holdings data. Institutional ownership figures refer to the quarter ended June 30, 2026. Form 13F reports are delayed disclosures and do not reveal an investor’s motive, hedges or transactions that occurred after quarter-end.
Price-to-earnings calculations are Dave Finances calculations using September 25, 2026 closing prices and the earnings figures described in the relevant sections. Non-GAAP measures are used only where companies themselves report or guide to those measures and should be considered alongside GAAP results.
This article is for informational and research purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
Primary and Supporting Sources
- Celestica Q2 2026 financial results and 2026 outlook.
- Celestica SEC filing covering its August 2026 equity offering.
- Coherent fiscal Q4 and full-year 2026 results.
- Coherent SEC filing covering Nvidia’s $2 billion strategic investment.
- nVent Q2 2026 earnings release filed with the SEC.
- nVent announcement of the proposed Maverick Power acquisition.
- Q2 2026 Form 13F holdings data aggregated from SEC filings for CLS, COHR and NVT.
Direct Source Links
- Celestica Q2 2026 financial results and 2026 outlook
- Celestica August 2026 equity offering – SEC filing
- Coherent Q4 and full-year fiscal 2026 results
- Coherent / Nvidia $2 billion strategic investment – SEC filing
- nVent Q2 2026 earnings release – SEC filing
- nVent proposed Maverick Power acquisition
- Coherent September 2026 optical product update
- Celestica institutional ownership data (aggregated Form 13F)
- Coherent institutional ownership data (aggregated Form 13F)
- nVent institutional ownership data (aggregated Form 13F)
Publication Notes
- Charts in this document were created specifically for this Dave Finances research article from the underlying reported data.
- Form 13F holdings are delayed quarter-end disclosures; they are not real-time trading signals and do not reveal a manager’s motive or hedges.
- Valuation calculations use September 25, 2026 closing prices and the earnings figures identified in the article.
- Non-GAAP figures are presented where the companies themselves report or guide to those measures and should be considered alongside GAAP results.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
His work focuses on identifying market-moving events, company developments, regulatory changes, product launches, and shifts in trading and financial infrastructure.
Johan contributes news and analysis designed to help readers understand not only what happened, but why a development matters and how it may affect the wider financial landscape.