Here's How AI Data Center Spending Helped This Stock Pop to an All-Time High Today
Key Points
nVent Electric's stock surged after strong earnings and raised guidance, with AI data center infrastructure driving its growth.
The stock is not cheap, but its earnings momentum may make it so if AI trends persist.
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Another day, another set of stellar earnings results and a significant full-year guidance hike from an AI-related company. In this case, it's nVent Electric (NYSE: NVT), a maker of electrical connection and protection solutions, whose stock was up by about 11% at 11 a.m. today.
nVent stock surges higher
A few days after another company with heavy exposure to AI data center infrastructure, GE Vernova (NYSE: GEV) reported excellent results and orders that confirmed an acceleration in AI investment (GE Vernova makes gas turbines that provide power for data centers, among other things). nVent also crushed first-quarter estimates and significantly raised guidance.
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If GE Vernova provides the heavy infrastructure to power a data center, then nVent Electric provides the electrical infrastructure to connect and protect power into and within the data center. It's not the company's sole activity, but it is its fastest-growing end market, and one that the company's management has successfully gravitated toward in recent years due to a series of acquisitions.
Indeed, as CEO Beth Wozniak noted on the earnings call, "We have intentionally increased our exposure to the high-growth infrastructure vertical," such that "infrastructure made up 12% of sales at spin, expanding to 45% last year, and now is over 55%" in the recent results.
Image source: Getty Images.
Where next for nVent
Moreover, the growth in its data center and power utilities end markets led management to increase its full-year organic sales guidance to 21% to 23%, up from previous guidance of 10% to 13%. Similarly, management raised its full-year EPS guidance to $4.45 to $4.55 from $4 to $4.15 previously, and the market wasted no time in pricing in the increased earnings outlook.
Trading on 35 times the midpoint of its full-year guidance, nVEnt is not the cheapest stock on the market, and it probably needs to keep beating expectations to rise further. Still, that's exactly what it did today, and if the AI boom maintains momentum, it could do it again in 2026.
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Lee Samaha has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends GE Vernova. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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