Thursday, July 30, 2026

Markets gave back ground Wednesday — SPY closed at $729.46, down 1.54%, and QQQ fell 2.04% to $661.73. The 524 stocks in our AI infrastructure universe underperformed the broad tape substantially, with 459 declining and just 62 advancing for an average decline of 4.08%, trailing SPY by 254 basis points. The lone positive segment was intelligence/observability — essentially Datadog — at +5.3%, while compute and silicon names were the heaviest weight, down 4.82%. SBAC (SBA Communications) led all gainers at +6.5%, while PSN (Parsons Corporation) cratered 35.0% after a sharp earnings miss, and VRT (Vertiv Holdings Co) shed 17.3% despite beating estimates. Today’s macro calendar brings June core PCE, the first read on Q2 GDP, and initial jobless claims; after the close, AMZN (Amazon.com, Inc.) headlines a heavy earnings slate that also includes Southern Company and WESCO.

VRT posted Q2 adjusted EPS of $1.52, topping the $1.43 consensus, but the stock fell 17.3% on the day — signaling that the market may have been anticipating stronger forward guidance or rotating away from power and cooling names after a long run.

LRCX (Lam Research Corporation) delivered EPS of $1.82, above the $1.69 estimate, supported by sustained investment in leading-edge wafer fabrication equipment.

QCOM (QUALCOMM Incorporated) reported EPS of $2.21, two cents below the $2.23 consensus, a narrow miss that added to the negative tone across the silicon complex.

META (Meta Platforms, Inc.) recorded EPS of $6.18 against a $7.19 estimate, missing by more than a dollar, a result that will concentrate attention on the trajectory of expense growth relative to revenue in the hyperscale space.

APH (Amphenol Corporation) earned $1.35 per share, well ahead of the $1.18 estimate, as demand for its connectors and sensors remained broad-based.

FTNT (Fortinet, Inc.) delivered $0.90 EPS versus the $0.746 consensus, pointing to durable network security spending.

GNRC (Generac Holdings Inc.) reported $2.91 EPS, far exceeding the $2.01 forecast, driven by robust orders for backup power systems.

PSN swung to a loss of $0.06 per share, missing the $0.756 estimate by a wide margin, and the stock fell 35.0% — the worst single-day performance in our universe.

EQIX (Equinix, Inc.) posted $4.83 EPS, ten cents ahead of the $4.73 consensus, reflecting steady demand for colocation and interconnection services.

FORM (FormFactor, Inc.) reported $0.82 EPS, comfortably above the $0.609 estimate, as test and measurement demand for advanced semiconductor packages stayed firm.

CoreWeave and Leidos announced a collaboration to accelerate AI adoption for defense and national security missions. The partnership will pair CoreWeave’s GPU-accelerated cloud infrastructure (CRWV (CoreWeave, Inc.)) with Leidos’s systems integration scale, extending specialized AI compute into classified environments. This marks another sign that sovereign and defense-linked AI demand is beginning to layer incremental growth on top of commercial cloud investment.

AMZN reports this afternoon with consensus EPS of $1.82. AWS’s revenue growth and capital expenditure guidance are the primary inputs for tracking the pace of AI infrastructure investment. A signal of sustained or expanding data center build rates would flow directly through the compute, networking, and power supply chain.

Tomorrow morning brings results from ETN (consensus $3.07) and NVT (consensus $1.16), two electrical equipment providers with significant data center exposure. Their backlog trends and commentary on lead times for switchgear, busway, and power distribution units will offer a real-time gauge of electrical infrastructure demand for AI clusters.

Also reporting July 31, D (Dominion Energy, Inc.) (consensus $0.681) serves the Northern Virginia data center corridor, the world’s densest concentration of hyperscale facilities. The company’s load growth projections and interconnection pipeline will be parsed for clues about the absorption rate of new AI-driven power demand.