November 29, 2025
Coherent Corp (NYSE: COHR) has turned into one of the most explosive AI‑infrastructure plays on Wall Street this quarter. After a string of strong results, aggressive price‑target hikes and big moves in the options and insider markets, the photonics specialist heads into the final stretch of 2025 with its stock near record highs.
As of the close on Friday, November 28, 2025, Coherent shares finished at $164.26, up about 6.7% on the day on heavy volume of roughly 4.8 million shares. [1] That caps a powerful run from the mid‑$130s just over a week ago and leaves the company with a market value of around $25.8 billion. [2]
Under the surface, the story is all about AI data centers, high‑speed optics, and a management team aggressively reshaping the portfolio and balance sheet. Here’s what’s driving COHR stock as of November 29, 2025 — and what the latest news flow actually says.
Coherent Corp stock at a glance
Recent trading puts Coherent in rarefied air for a former “old‑school” laser company:
- Last close (Nov 28, 2025): $164.26, up about 6.66% on the day. [3]
- Short‑term momentum: Over the past week, shares have climbed roughly 10%, contributing to a year‑to‑date gain of about 53% and a three‑year total return north of 300%, according to Simply Wall St’s performance data. [4]
- Market capitalization: Approximately $25.8 billion as of late November. [5]
- 52‑week range: About $45.58 to $168.57, putting the current price near the top of its recent trading band. [6]
- Valuation: Public.com pegs Coherent’s trailing P/E ratio at ~222x, with a high beta around 2.6 and no dividend, underscoring that this is a growth‑and‑volatility story, not an income play. [7]
From November 20’s close around $135.61 to November 28’s $164.26, COHR has gained just over 20% in eight calendar days, a move supported by several days of multi‑million‑share trading volume. [8]
Technical platforms like TradingView currently flag Coherent as a “strong buy” on daily, weekly and one‑month technical ratings – a reflection of the strong uptrend, not a guarantee of future returns. [9]
The catalyst: Q1 FY26 earnings beat and bullish guidance
The foundation for the latest rally was laid on November 5, 2025, when Coherent reported first‑quarter fiscal 2026 results (quarter ended September 30, 2025).
According to the company’s official release and subsequent call highlights: [10]
- Revenue: $1.58 billion
- +17% year‑over‑year on a reported basis
- +19% year‑over‑year on a pro‑forma basis, adjusting for the prior sale of the aerospace & defense business
- Roughly 3% sequential growth
- Margins and profits (non‑GAAP):
- Gross margin: 38.7%, up 200 basis points year‑over‑year
- Operating margin: 19.5%, up from 18% in the prior quarter
- EPS: $1.16, versus $1.00 in the previous quarter and $0.67 a year ago
- Balance sheet actions:
- Coherent paid down $400 million of debt in the quarter, cutting its leverage ratio from about 2.4x to 1.7x, and refinanced remaining debt to lower interest costs. [11]
Management tied the growth to surging demand from AI‑related data centers and high‑speed communications customers. CEO Jim Anderson highlighted “record bookings” and strong visibility out to 2028, particularly for optical components used in high‑bandwidth networking. [12]
Guidance that leans into the AI cycle
For Q2 FY26, Coherent issued guidance that reinforced the growth narrative: [13]
- Revenue: $1.56–$1.70 billion
- Non‑GAAP gross margin: 38–40%
- Non‑GAAP EPS: $1.10–$1.30
Those ranges imply continued double‑digit year‑over‑year growth and stable to improving profitability, even while the company is still investing heavily in capacity expansions.
Not surprisingly, multiple trading and news services summarised the quarter as an earnings beat: StocksToTrade, for example, notes that the $1.16 EPS beat consensus estimates near $1.04, with revenue topping a roughly $1.54 billion Street forecast. [14]
AI data centers and optical networking at the core of the story
Coherent’s business is broad – spanning engineered materials, optoelectronic components and laser systems for industrial, communications, electronics and instrumentation markets worldwide. [15] But in 2025, the spotlight is clearly on AI data centers and high‑speed communications.
Highlights from the Q1 earnings‑call analysis show: [16]
- Pro‑forma revenue up 19% year‑over‑year, driven largely by AI‑linked data center demand.
- Record bookings for optical networking products, especially modules tied to 800G and 1.6T data‑center interconnects.
- Persistent supply constraints in indium phosphide (InP) lasers, limiting how much demand Coherent can fulfill in the near term.
- A major capacity expansion: the company is doubling InP capacity over the next 12 months, including ramping the world’s first 6‑inch InP production line in Sherman, Texas, alongside capacity in Sweden. Initial yields on 6‑inch wafers are already better than the older 3‑inch lines, which should help margins.
In other words, Coherent is simultaneously capacity‑constrained and demand‑rich in one of the hottest corners of the semiconductor and networking stack. That’s exactly the kind of problem growth investors like to see — though it also introduces execution risk if supply bottlenecks persist.
Product momentum: Axon FP laser keeps the innovation narrative alive
The AI data center story is only part of Coherent’s appeal. The company is also pushing new products into life sciences and precision instrumentation.
A late‑November Simply Wall St piece highlights Coherent’s launch of the Axon FP, a compact femtosecond laser aimed at life‑science imaging, instrumentation and metrology tools. [17] The design is meant to simplify complex research setups and broaden the addressable user base, which could support higher‑margin, application‑specific revenue streams over time.
That same analysis notes that Coherent’s share price: [18]
- Has risen about 10.4% over the past week,
- Is up 53.1% year‑to‑date, and
- Has delivered roughly 307.7% total return over three years.
Simply Wall St estimates a “fair value” for the stock around $168.74 per share, modestly above recent prices and implying the stock is about 8–9% undervalued under one narrative model – though their discounted cash flow model is more cautious and suggests the shares might already be pricing in aggressive long‑term growth assumptions. [19]
Taken together, the Axon FP launch, the InP expansion and a steady stream of new optical products for sensing and communications (including new polarization‑maintaining fibers for long‑range LIDAR) paint Coherent as a broad‑based photonics platform, not a single‑product bet. [20]
Analyst reactions: a wave of price‑target hikes
Following the November earnings beat, several research houses have turned more bullish on COHR:
- Needham raised its price target to $190 and reiterated a Buy rating, highlighting AI‑driven growth and better‑than‑expected earnings. [21]
- Barclays lifted its target to around $170, maintaining an Overweight stance. [22]
- Stifel moved its target to roughly $140, keeping a Buy rating. [23]
- Susquehanna nudged its target to about $160 with a Positive rating, citing strength in the 800G optical cycle and AI cloud capex. [24]
- CFRA has reportedly taken its target to about $180, leaning on sustained AI demand and improving profitability. [25]
- Earlier in the cycle, Rosenblatt increased its target from $135 to $150, while keeping a Buy rating and pointing to long‑term EPS power. [26]
More broadly, Zacks has flagged Coherent as one of the stocks poised to benefit from robust growth in the technology services and AI ecosystem, noting that the sector as a whole is enjoying strong demand as generative AI, machine learning and cloud infrastructure spending ramp up. [27]
It’s worth noting that not every firm has been relentlessly bullish. Back in August, Morgan Stanley trimmed its price target and called Coherent’s earlier outlook “underwhelming,” reflecting concerns about execution and near‑term volatility. [28] The subsequent Q1 beat and guidance, however, have clearly shifted sentiment at many other desks.
Trading interest and volatility spike
The last few weeks have made Coherent a favorite among short‑term traders as well as long‑term AI bulls.
- StocksToTrade reports that on November 28, COHR was up around 7–8% intraday, with news desks framing the move around the earnings beat, AI demand and a cluster of price‑target upgrades. [29]
- Earlier in November, data‑driven service QuiverQuant flagged a day when COHR stock jumped about 13%, with over $50 million in trading value changing hands. [30]
- TipRanks’ summary for COHR shows year‑to‑date price performance near 51%, average daily trading volume above 4 million shares and a technical sentiment signal of “Buy,” while its AI‑driven “Spark” model rates the stock as Neutral overall, citing a mix of strong earnings momentum and valuation concerns. [31]
These kinds of moves underscore an important point: COHR is volatile. The same leverage that amplifies upside can translate into sharp drawdowns, as seen in earlier periods when the stock dropped on large shareholder sales and cautious broker commentary. [32]
Insider selling: profit‑taking in a hot stock
Against this backdrop of gains, insiders have also been active — a normal but closely watched dynamic whenever a stock runs hard.
Recent filings and coverage include:
- On November 25, 2025, director Enrico Digirolomo sold 2,831 shares of Coherent, a transaction worth about $381,760, according to TipRanks’ insider‑activity report. [33]
- On October 29, 2025, Executive Vice President Giovanni Barbarossa sold 59,480 shares for approximately $8.36 million, at prices between roughly $140.46 and $141.10. The sale was executed under a pre‑arranged Rule 10b5‑1 trading plan, and was paired with the exercise of options to acquire the same number of shares at significantly lower strike prices (in the mid‑$30s to upper‑$40s). [34]
Post‑transaction, Barbarossa still holds more than 220,000 COHR shares, suggesting these moves are at least partly portfolio‑management and liquidity events rather than an outright exit. [35]
Investors typically view insider selling in context: it can be a yellow flag if it clusters around deteriorating fundamentals, but in this case it coincides with:
- A share price that has more than doubled over six months, [36]
- Strengthening margins and cash flows, and
- A deliberate strategy to pay down debt and streamline operations. [37]
So far, the market appears comfortable absorbing these sales.
Portfolio reshaping: divestitures and focus on high‑growth segments
Coherent is not just riding demand; it’s also reshaping its business mix:
- The company has agreed to sell its materials processing tools division (a Germany‑based unit with roughly $100 million in annual sales) to Bystronic. Most of the proceeds are earmarked for debt reduction, which should be accretive to earnings per share via lower interest expense. [38]
- Coherent continues to consolidate its manufacturing footprint, exiting more than 20 sites over recent quarters while expanding module capacity in Malaysia and Vietnam to support AI data‑center and communications demand. [39]
For investors, this means the company is intentionally tilting toward higher‑growth, higher‑margin photonics and networking products while trimming slower or less synergistic operations. That can support multiples in a bull case — but it also makes results more sensitive to cycles in data‑center and telecom spending.
Risks to watch: valuation, competition and supply constraints
Despite the upbeat narrative, several risks stand out in the latest round of coverage:
- Rich valuation
- With a trailing P/E above 200x and a large run‑up in the last six months, COHR is priced for continued execution on AI and optics growth. [40]
- Simply Wall St’s own models show a split view: some fair‑value approaches see the stock as modestly undervalued, while their DCF framework suggests it could already be ahead of fundamentals if growth slows. [41]
- Supply‑chain bottlenecks
- Management has been explicit that indium phosphide laser capacity remains tight and will take time to fully ramp, which could limit near‑term upside even with robust orders. [42]
- Competitive and geopolitical pressures
- Coherent operates in markets facing low‑cost competition from Asian manufacturers and macro uncertainty that can hit capex budgets in industrial and communications end markets. [43]
- Sentiment whiplash
- The same AI enthusiasm pushing shares higher has also produced sharp pullbacks in the past when large shareholders sold stock or big banks issued cautious notes — for example, when Bain Capital offloaded shares and when Morgan Stanley cut its target earlier in 2025. [44]
All of this doesn’t negate the bull case, but it does underline that COHR is more “high‑beta growth equity” than defensive stalwart.
Bottom line on Coherent Corp stock as of November 29, 2025
As of November 29, 2025, Coherent Corp sits at the intersection of several powerful themes:
- AI infrastructure build‑out, where record bookings in optical networking and data‑center components are driving double‑digit revenue growth and margin expansion. [45]
- Product innovation, from high‑speed communications modules to the new Axon FP laser for life‑science applications. [46]
- Active Wall Street coverage, with multiple banks lifting price targets into the $150–$190 range following a decisive Q1 beat and higher guidance. [47]
- Ongoing portfolio cleanup and deleveraging, including divestitures and aggressive debt paydowns that have already reduced leverage to around 1.7x. [48]
At the same time, the stock’s steep run, rich valuation and sensitivity to AI and optical‑networking cycles mean that volatility is likely to remain part of the package.
For investors and traders tracking COHR on Google News or Discover, the key questions now are less about whether Coherent is relevant to the AI build‑out (it clearly is) and more about how much of that future is already priced in — and how smoothly management can execute on its capacity, product and portfolio plans over the next few quarters.
References
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