Tuesday, August 11, 2026

The S&P 500 was essentially flat — SPY slipped 0.03% to $773.03 — while the QQQ gave back 0.30%, closing at $720.87. The 524 AI infrastructure stocks we track underperformed meaningfully: only 166 advanced against 353 decliners for an average move of -1.27%, or -1.24% below the broad market. Software & Design was the bright spot (+3.45%), lifted by DDOG’s 11.5% surge, but Silicon Design was the heaviest drag at -4.20%. The session’s standout was BWMN, up 55.8% after its strong beat, while VATE plunged 41.1% on the downside. The earnings docket is heavy — CRWV, LITE, and SMCI all report, with NBIS, COHR, and CBRS following tomorrow.

BWMN (Bowman Consulting Group Ltd.) delivered the clearest upside surprise: EPS of $0.62 against a $0.47 estimate, a 33% beat. Bowman’s engineering and consulting services are heavily exposed to data center and utility infrastructure, and the stock’s 55.8% rally implies the market is pricing in sustained demand momentum.

ACM (Aecom) reported an outlier miss — EPS of -$0.50 versus the $1.46 consensus, a shortfall of $1.96 per share. The magnitude suggests a large impairment or charge; the stock’s after-hours reaction will offer more color. Aecom’s global infrastructure exposure makes the result a notable counterpoint to the otherwise buoyant data‑center construction narrative.

AAON (AAON, Inc.) beat handily, posting $0.69 against a $0.51 estimate. The premium HVAC and liquid‑cooling manufacturer benefits from strong data‑center thermal management demand, and the beat reinforces the theme that cooling spend continues to grow alongside rack densities.

CEVA (CEVA, Inc.) edged past estimates ($0.08 versus $0.07) yet the stock fell 17.5% during the session. The divergence points to a cautious guide or licensing‑mix concern that outweighed the headline beat; CEVA’s DSP IP is embedded in a wide range of edge‑AI silicon, though not directly in the data‑center compute chain.

BTDR (Bitdeer Technologies Group) missed with an actual EPS of -$0.37 against a -$0.36 estimate, and the shares dropped 20.1%. Bitdeer operates AI‑compute and Bitcoin‑mining data centers; the loss and tepid reaction suggest the market wants faster progress on its AI‑hosting ramp.

BW (Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc.) posted a $0.04 profit versus the $0.02 expected. The beat itself is small, but it gains significance alongside the company’s subsequent announcement of a steam‑turbine agreement for data‑center power — making the earnings read‑through more about demand visibility than the quarter’s numbers.

CAMT (Camtek Ltd.) continued its run of steady beats, reporting $0.78 against a $0.76 estimate. Camtek’s inspection and metrology tools are vital for advanced packaging, and each incremental beat is incremental evidence that the packaging build‑out for AI silicon is still intensifying.

Intel prices a $20 billion common stock offering, the largest equity raise in the company’s history. The deal bolsters the balance sheet as Intel simultaneously pushes its “AI inside” foundry strategy and the 18A process ramp. The fresh capital is intended to fund U.S. fab expansions — including the Ohio mega‑site — and advanced packaging capacity, both of which are directly relevant to the domestic AI chip supply chain.

Babcock & Wilcox signs an agreement with Siemens Energy to begin work on 20 steam turbines for data‑center power generation. The turbines are destined for behind‑the‑meter generation that bypasses the congested grid, a model growing rapidly as hyperscalers seek ways to power gigawatt‑scale clusters without waiting for transmission upgrades. The partnership pairs BW’s boiler and steam‑cycle know‑how with Siemens’ turbine technology.

Tomorrow brings three critical readouts for the AI infrastructure supply chain — NBIS, COHR, and CBRS all report. Nebius is a pure‑play AI‑cloud operator, and its revenue and CapEx guidance will be the market’s first broad indicator of GPU‑as‑a‑service demand in the second half of the year. Coherent is a primary source of high‑speed optical transceivers for data‑center interconnects; any update on 800G/1.6T adoption rates and backlog will ripple through networking names. Cerebras, with its wafer‑scale AI chips, offers a direct read on whether alternative silicon architectures are gaining hyperscaler traction — a result that could inform the packaging and power‑delivery supply chains.

On Wednesday, AMAT reports. As the largest semiconductor equipment company by revenue, Applied Materials’ orders and commentary on foundry, DRAM, and advanced‑packaging spending will serve as a de facto capex barometer for the entire chip industry. The call will be parsed for any change in the pace of gate‑all‑around or backside power‑delivery investments, both directly tied to next‑generation AI chip production.