Vertiv more than just AI play, time to buy, Barron’s says

The AI trade has given-and it has taken away. That has created a buying opportunity in the stock of Vertiv Holdings (VRT), Jacob Sonenshine writes in this week’s edition of Barron’s. When the company reported second-quarter earnings on July 24, investors got a sense of just how big. Sales grew by 13% and earnings jumped nearly 50%. But instead of rising, Vertiv stock dropped 14%, victim of timing as earnings from Alphabet (GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) raised concerns that companies have been spending too much on AI, which means not just chips, but also the infrastructure and cooling systems needed for data centers, Vertiv’s bread and butter, the author says. But there’s one problem: Vertiv’s business is too strong to get undermined by what looks to be a short-term concern, the publication adds.