Key Takeaways
- Vertiv shares rose 12% in the past week after its orders more than doubled and it raised its 2026 guidance.
- Its $1.45 billion UtilityInnovation Group deal takes Vertiv upstream into onsite power, a bottleneck for AI data centers.
- Friday’s selloff hit Vertiv and nVent despite their beats, so customers’ funding is still the main risk.
- Vertiv trades below its usual forward P/E as estimates rise, and its first 2027 guidance comes in February.
Vertiv (VRT) stock is up 12% in the past week, while the Nasdaq 100 fell 4%. The reason is the Oct. 28 third-quarter report: organic orders more than doubled, and management raised its guidance on every key metric. Shares gave back some of the gain in the Oct. 30 AI-spending selloff, when nVent (NVT) fell nearly 9%.
Orders doubled, and Vertiv raised the bar again
Sales rose 61% to $4.31 billion, against the $3.76 billion analysts expected, and Vertiv added $650 million to its 2026 sales outlook. Customers are paying up front, too: advance and milestone payments reached $4.12 billion at Sept. 30, up from $1.81 billion at the end of 2025.
Executive Chairman Dave Cote said in the release, “We are in an industry where the more technology changes, the better it is for us.”
Vertiv just bought its way to the grid
The bigger news may have come the day before earnings. On Oct. 27, Vertiv closed its purchase of UtilityInnovation Group for about $1.45 billion in cash, plus up to $1.15 billion tied to EBITDA targets. Vertiv expects it to add to adjusted EPS in year one.
With UIG’s microgrid controls and behind-the-meter power, Vertiv now reaches from the chip to the utility hookup. CEO Giordano Albertazzi said that “access to power has become a critical competitive advantage.”
TIKR tracks 30 analysts on Vertiv. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Vertiv, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Vertiv’s Analyst Ratings
AI spending fears haven’t gone away
On Oct. 30, Intel’s weak outlook and Amazon’s results revived AI-spending worries. nVent fell nearly 9% that day, even as it reported record third-quarter sales and orders, grew adjusted EPS 67% and raised its full-year guidance.
These stocks still trade on their customers’ funding, a worry that built through October as Meta’s capex topped its operating cash flow. A data center that can’t get financed is an order that gets pushed back.
February brings the first look at 2027
Analysts expect normalized EPS to nearly triple from 2025 to 2028:
Analysts’ 2027 estimate has climbed to $9.74 from $9.17 at the end of September. Yet Vertiv traded at 25x forward earnings at the Oct. 30 close, below its 27x five-year average and less than half its 55x May peak:
Bottom line: with estimates rising and UIG giving it more to sell into every new site, Vertiv looks like a buy at this price.
Because Vertiv will no longer report orders, its fourth-quarter report, due around February, is the next real test. That report brings the first 2027 guidance and a year-end backlog to measure against 2025’s $15.0 billion.
So what is Vertiv stock actually worth?
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
