New York, Feb 9, 2026, 15:12 EST — Regular session underway.
- Coherent shares jump over 7% in afternoon action.
- BofA bumped its price target up to $250, sticking with a Neutral rating.
- AI-driven optical demand is under scrutiny, with investors also eyeing Friday’s U.S. inflation numbers.
Shares of Coherent Corp (COHR) jumped over 7% Monday, boosted by a price target hike from Bank of America. The stock was last seen trading at $244.13, up 7.2%, swinging between $219.69 and $247.06 on the day.
This shift is getting attention—Coherent’s become something of a high-beta stand-in for AI data center spending, a space where both demand and sentiment can flip fast. Last week’s earnings sparked a sharp initial selloff. Now, investors are still chewing over what “capacity expansion” is actually going to do to margins.
Bank of America bumped its price target up to $250 from $230 but stuck with a Neutral rating, TheFly reported. In its note, the bank flagged “hyperscale” capex—big spending by major cloud players—saying global hyperscale capital expenditures hit $148 billion in the fourth quarter and projecting even loftier numbers for 2026 and 2027. 1
Lumentum climbed 4.8%, Ciena added 8.1%, and Applied Optoelectronics jumped 8.2%—all part of a rally in optical and networking stocks. Broader indexes joined in: the S&P 500 ETF rose 0.7%, while the Nasdaq-100 tracker saw a roughly 1.0% gain.
Coherent shares have been on a rollercoaster after earnings. The stock dropped roughly 7.9% on Feb. 4, slid again Feb. 5, before rebounding with an 8.8% surge on Friday. Monday’s rally sent it well past where it sat ahead of the results. 2
Coherent’s fiscal second quarter brought in $1.686 billion in revenue, with non-GAAP earnings landing at $1.29 per share. Looking ahead, the company projected third-quarter revenue between $1.70 billion and $1.84 billion, and expects non-GAAP EPS in the $1.28 to $1.48 range. Non-GAAP gross margin is penciled in at 38.5% to 40.5%. Non-GAAP results exclude items Coherent doesn’t consider part of its usual operations. 3
CEO Jim Anderson pointed to “strong demand” across datacenter and communications as the main factor behind the December-quarter increase, and said he expects “continued strong growth” through fiscal 2027. CFO Sherri Luther noted the company is “ramp[ing] our capital investment” to boost capacity. 4
That spending draws investors in, but it’s also a sticking point. They’re looking for hard evidence that the extra capacity translates into confirmed orders, not just thinner pricing or tighter gross margins.
Coherent’s lasers and optical gear are staples in data centers’ high-speed connections, plus the company makes components for industrial manufacturing. Lately, though, the stock’s been trading with the kind of momentum you’d expect from an AI infrastructure play, not your typical industrial supplier.
But things can turn quickly—cloud operators slowing their spending or delaying upgrades can leave suppliers holding extra inventory and facing stiffer price pressure. Coherent faces its own hurdles, too, as it ramps up capacity and manages a business portfolio reshaped by recent divestitures.
Friday brings another hurdle for rate-sensitive tech stocks: the U.S. January consumer price index lands at 8:30 a.m. ET. A surprise in that data could jolt yields and flip the mood for high-multiple names, Coherent among them. 5
