NEW YORK, Jan 2, 2026, 19:22 ET — After-hours
- Vertiv shares were up 8.4% in after-hours trading at $175.61.
- Barclays upgraded the stock to overweight and raised its price target to $200.
- Investors are watching whether AI-driven data center spending can keep supporting 2026 earnings growth.
Vertiv Holdings (VRT) shares jumped 8.4% in after-hours trading on Friday after Barclays upgraded the data center power-and-cooling supplier and raised its price target to $200. Analyst Julian Mitchell called the pullback an “attractive entry point” and said the company’s outlook often leaves room to “beat and raise” — topping forecasts and lifting guidance. 1
The move puts Vertiv back in the spotlight early in the new year as investors recalibrate bets on the infrastructure behind artificial intelligence, where higher-power servers are driving demand for equipment that supports and cools data centers.
That matters now because many of these “picks-and-shovels” names have swung sharply with shifting views on data center capex — corporate capital spending on facilities and equipment — and whether the buildout pace can be sustained. Mitchell wrote that worries about a pullback in data center spending were overdone, and he framed Vertiv as a high-exposure way to play the theme. 2
Barclays said its upgrade reflects higher earnings expectations for 2026 and 2027 and a revised valuation framework after recent share-price volatility. The bank now estimates adjusted EPS of $5.68 for 2026 versus a Bloomberg consensus of $5.24, and said its 2026 and 2027 EPS estimates are 8% and 12% above consensus, respectively. It also pegged data centers at about 80% of Vertiv’s sales and highlighted liquid cooling — citing Dell’Oro Group data showing the liquid-cooling market grew more than 110% year over year on a trailing 12-month basis in the third quarter of 2025. 3
Barclays’ “overweight” rating is an analyst call that the stock should outperform others in the same coverage universe, not a statement about the company’s balance sheet.
Vertiv’s appeal in the AI trade is straightforward: as servers get denser and draw more power, data centers need more electrical infrastructure and more sophisticated cooling to keep systems operating reliably.
The flip side is that the stock can trade like a proxy for hyperscalers — large cloud operators — and their budgeting cycles. Any sign those customers slow construction or stretch deployments tends to ripple quickly into suppliers.
Friday’s jump also sets a higher bar for follow-through. After a one-day rerating on a broker note, investors typically look for the next datapoint — orders, backlog, margins and guidance — to confirm that expectations are not running ahead of delivery.
For traders, the immediate question is whether the move holds into the next regular session, or fades as liquidity normalizes and investors digest how much of 2026’s earnings outlook is already priced in.
Longer term, the focus stays on execution: scaling capacity, managing costs, and proving that newer offerings such as liquid cooling can become a larger contributor as AI workloads grow.
