The company that keeps AI from overheating has never been this cold.
Vertiv Holdings Co. (NYSE:VRT) headed into Tuesday afternoon lower for an 11th consecutive session. That is the longest losing streak since the company listed in February 2020.
The run began on Oct. 6 and has taken nearly 20% off the stock, which now trades around $204.
The previous record was nine sessions, ending March 3, 2020. No other S&P 500 member is currently down more than seven days in a row.
Some of the names on seven-day streaks tell the same story. Quanta Services Inc. (NYSE:PWR), EMCOR Group Inc. (NYSE:EME) and Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) all build or equip the power side of the AI buildout.
So why is one of the most closely watched AI data center stocks falling day after day? And why do Wall Street analysts remain so positive?
What Changed Was the Cost of Capital, Not the Backlog
The streak picked up speed on Oct. 14. That morning, September consumer prices rose 3.7% from a year earlier, above the 3.6% expected, and the 10-year Treasury yield briefly touched 5.33%.
The same day, CoreWeave Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV) shares fell as much as 16% after its bond yields hit 15%. Gartner also forecast that more than 80% of neocloud providers, the specialized AI cloud companies, will stop operating independently by 2030.
A day later, producer prices jumped 1.3% in September, the sharpest monthly rise since March 2022.
None of this was Vertiv’s news. All of it shapes who can afford a Vertiv cooling system next year.
In late September, BlackRock had argued the opposite. In its weekly commentary, it said cheaper AI models “could shift value toward the physical infrastructure needed to support greater AI use computing power, data centers and electricity.” It added that the buildout was “speeding up, making bottlenecks binding.”
No one has refuted that thesis. What the market is now questioning is who will pay for it.
March 2020: the Only Precedent
Vertiv’s only comparable streak came weeks after the company listed by merging with a Goldman Sachs-sponsored blank-check company in February 2020.
From Feb. 20 to March 3, the stock fell for nine straight sessions and lost 17.2%. The cause was the pandemic, not anything the company did.
The stock kept falling after that streak ended and hit a closing low of $5.57 on March 18. From there it climbed roughly 67-fold to a record close of $376.23 in May 2026.
The parallel cuts both ways. Both streaks were driven by macro forces, and they are nearly identical in length and depth. But in 2020, nobody knew what data centers would become.
Analysts Trim Targets, Keep Their Ratings
Analysts have lowered their price targets without abandoning their bullish calls.
RBC Capital cut its target to $323 from $337 on Oct. 14. Mizuho followed the next day, to $280 from $300. Morgan Stanley moved to $330 from $350 on Oct. 16. RBC and Mizuho kept Outperform ratings, and Morgan Stanley kept Overweight.
The only bearish call arrived on day one of the streak. On Oct. 6, GLJ Research‘s Gordon Johnson started coverage with a Sell rating and a $188 target, arguing that the liquid-cooling market could tip into oversupply in 2028.
Even so, Benzinga Analyst Ratings data show 23 of 25 analysts rating the stock a Buy. Their average price target of $314 implies about 54% upside.
The Business Has Not Slowed Down
In July, Vertiv reported second-quarter net sales of $3.27 billion, up 24% from a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share rose 60% to $1.52, ahead of the $1.42 analysts expected.
It also raised its 2026 outlook. It now expects adjusted earnings of $6.65 to $6.75 per share on net sales of about $14 billion.
Investors sold anyway, and the stock fell 17% on the day of the report.
At around $204, Vertiv trades at about 30 times the midpoint of its 2026 earnings guidance.
Oct. 28 Is the Line
Vertiv reports third-quarter results before the market opens on Oct. 28. The Fed announces its rate decision later that day.
The company has guided to $898 million to $938 million in adjusted operating profit for the quarter, and to adjusted earnings of $1.77 to $1.83 per share.
In July, part of the quarter’s revenue slipped into later periods. CEO Giordano Albertazzi told analysts that the company had “experienced some minor timing shifts in Q2 revenue, primarily driven by multiphase project execution.”
On Oct. 28, investors will learn whether those shifts were timing or something more. Within a few hours, they will also hear from the Fed, which sets the cost of financing the data centers that Vertiv’s equipment powers.
Photo: Shutterstock
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