Key Takeaways
- Coherent shares rose 5% today after CoreWeave beat on revenue and raised its 2026 outlook, lifting Lumentum, Marvell, Credo and Astera Labs too.
- CoreWeave’s faster, better-funded buildout points to more demand for the optics Coherent makes.
- Coherent’s demand already looks strong, but it burned cash last quarter building inventory and capacity.
- Coherent traded below its five-year average forward P/E at the last close, and its Feb. 3 report is the next cash test.
Coherent (COHR) stock jumped 5% this morning with no news of its own. The lift came from CoreWeave, whose co-founder, chairman and CEO Michael Intrator called its third quarter “a breakout quarter” after Tuesday’s close.
Optics rival Lumentum (LITE) and its pending all-stock acquirer, Marvell Technology (MRVL), rose too, as did Credo Technology (CRDO) and Astera Labs (ALAB).
CoreWeave is building faster
CoreWeave’s revenue rose 168% to $3.66 billion, and its backlog reached about $132.5 billion. It also lifted the low end of its 2026 capex range to $37 billion to $39 billion, since it expects to deliver infrastructure to customers sooner than planned. And it eased this month’s funding worries, with Intrator pointing to “approximately $9 billion in customer prepayments and deposits expected in the next three months alone.”
More GPU clusters online sooner means more optical links to connect them, and that’s Coherent’s business.
Coherent was already booked
Coherent has called fiscal 2027 basically booked out, and its September-quarter revenue rose 50% to $2.37 billion. Analysts expect normalized EPS to nearly triple from the year ended June 2026 to fiscal 2028:
Nothing in CoreWeave’s report gives them a reason to cut. The catch is cash: operating cash flow was negative $93 million in the September quarter, as capex hit $776 million and inventory climbed to $3.3 billion.
TIKR tracks 26 analysts on Coherent. How many say “Buy”?
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A bigger rival, and the connectivity names
Lumentum climbed 9%, and Marvell rose 6%. Lumentum’s non-GAAP gross margin was 53.2% in the September quarter, against Coherent’s 40.6%. With Marvell behind it, the same demand lifting Coherent is building it a tougher competitor.
Astera Labs rose 4% after reporting third-quarter revenue up 154% to $584.9 million and guiding to $730 million to $750 million for the fourth. That guide looks safer after CoreWeave’s report. Credo also rose 6%, and its next report will show whether its AI orders keep that pace.
Still below its usual multiple
Coherent’s forward P/E sits below its five-year average:
It sat at 18x forward earnings at the last close, against a five-year average of 24x and a June peak of 57x. Today’s jump takes it to about 20x.
I think that discount is about the cash, and CoreWeave just gave the demand side another vote. If the estimates hold, Coherent has room to run. Of course, demand has to turn into cash eventually, and Coherent’s Feb. 3 report needs to show operating cash flow turning positive.
So what is Coherent stock actually worth?
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