Sterling's CEC-heavy revenue mix appears to explain its consolidated margin decline rather than deteriorating CEC economics. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 21.6%, down about one percentage point as CEC made up more revenue, while CEC operating margin improved sequentially and year over year. Substantial organic growth and expanding work visibility made this a very strong operating report. The CEC acquisition's effect on the business remains worth watching. x.com 

Sterling Infrastructure's larger, more complex campus jobs should bring pricing power and repeat customers. Its operating, free-cash-flow and EBITDA margins are 18%, 14% and 21%, versus IES Holdings' 12%, 6% and 14%; Sterling also has net cash and buybacks. IES is better value, but Sterling is the preferred business for site development and inside electrical work on AI data-center and semiconductor campuses, while IES's larger residential mix dilutes its data-center margins. x.com  x.com 

Sterling Infrastructure looks like a bubble name carried along by the AI boom, at 17x book for a concrete company after a recent skyrocket. It has had three CFOs since 2024, the first lasting under nine months, and the current CFO stayed at his prior company, Orbital Infrastructure, through its 2023 bankruptcy. It lacks institutional ownership despite going from micro cap to multibillion valuation. It may be nothing, but it is not one to back. x.com 

Dycom looks compelling because its infrastructure backlog and operating execution position it to benefit from AI's demand for power, fiber, and data centers. Its backlog has grown to $12.2 billion from $8 billion a year ago, Building Systems EBITDA margins exceed 20%, and Power Solutions is running 30% ahead of acquisition expectations. The long-term growth opportunity may be underappreciated as the market focuses on near-term margin pressure. x.com 

Sterling Infrastructure is the best-of-breed data center builder and contractor, with EMCOR a close second. Investor's Business Daily named it Stock of the Day; the stock gapped up powerfully on earnings and is retesting its top, a great place to buy. x.com 

Sterling Infrastructure won't work at about 3x its $1.5 billion annual order run-rate. x.com 

EnerSys looks mispriced at about 15x forward earnings versus 23-31x for electrical equipment peers like nVent, Eaton and Hubbell riding the same AI power demand. It has beaten earnings 10 straight times, generated about $717M of free cash flow in 12 months, a near 10% yield, and lifted gross margin over 500 bps to 33.5%. Data center orders rose over 80% and defense revenue 24%. A third of adjusted earnings comes from a US tax credit that phases down after 2030; forklift batteries remain soft. … Show more

Constellation Energy is one of the best value investments available, owning firm 24-hour power, the largest bottleneck in the AI buildout, where data centers are being built. It raised EPS guidance to $11.50-12.50 and signed 920MW of new nuclear PPAs averaging 18.5 years, including Walmart's first nuclear deal, with about 30% of its clean baseload fleet now contracted. The Crane restart is on track for 2H 2027, and it trades at 23x forward earnings, below last year's price. x.com 

AI infrastructure names such as Vertiv, Bloom Energy and Sterling are an attractive, asymmetric short because slowing data-center builds should slow their order growth. Semis are historically overbought, a $200 billion company jumped 40% on its CEO calling it undervalued, companies may start rationalizing AI spend, Anthropic's revenue acceleration could slow, and a $1.5 trillion space IPO looms. Any waning momentum could cause severe unraveling. This is a high-conviction playbook into September. … Show more

CoreWeave's results confirm the AI supercycle, and the next wave of capital is moving beyond semiconductors after their big runs. CoreWeave reported $2.58 billion of revenue, up 122%, a $104 billion backlog and more than $25 billion of new customer commitments already in Q3. That capital is flowing into data centers (Nebius, IREN, Riot, Applied Digital), networking (Arista, Marvell), photonics (Lumentum, Coherent, Applied Optoelectronics) and power (Vertiv, Constellation, Vistra, Oklo). x.com  … Show more