Dear Reader,
I've spent more than 50 years warning about threats to Americans' money … including bank failures, bail‑outs and government account freezes overseas.
But I believe what's coming next could be far worse for unprepared savers.
A 93-page official government document — Federal Reserve Docket No. OP-1670 — reveals shocking details of a new Fed program that could change how bank accounts in America work.
For the first time, it could give federal authorities the power to see, flag or even freeze your everyday transactions in real time.
That means if they don't like which causes you support … where you send money … who you donate to … they could scuttle the flow with a few keystrokes.
That's why I've put together 4 simple steps to help "Fed proof" your savings — without breaking a single law or closing any of your current accounts.
To see exactly what's at stake and how to protect yourself, go here now.
Good luck and God bless!
Martin D. Weiss, PhD
Weiss Ratings Founder
P.S. In the past, governments in places like Cyprus and Canada have already frozen or restricted access to ordinary citizens' bank accounts. The new FedNow program could make it easier to take similar action here at home, which is why these 4 steps are so urgent. See how to "Fed proof" your bank account while you still can.
Vertiv's $15 Billion Backlog Is the Loudest AI Signal in 2026
By Jeffrey Neal Johnson. Article Published: 2/18/2026.
Key Points
- The company reported a historic surge in its order backlog that provides exceptional visibility into revenue growth for multiple future years.
- Strategic acquisitions and partnerships with leading chip manufacturers have solidified a dominant position in the liquid cooling market.
- Recent government policy exemptions for large data centers effectively create a regulatory advantage that incentivizes domestic expansion.
- Special Report: [Sponsorship-Ad-6-Format3]
For the past two years, the artificial intelligence (AI) investment narrative has focused almost exclusively on silicon. Investors repeatedly asked, "Who makes the chips?" and the answer was usually NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA). But as 2026 unfolds, the bottleneck in the AI revolution is shifting from acquiring processors to the physics of keeping them running.
As AI data centers grow larger and chips run hotter, the primary constraints have moved to power delivery and thermal management. That shift has positioned Vertiv Holdings Co. (NYSE: VRT) as the "utility company" of the AI era.
Have $500? Invest in Elon's AI Masterplan (Ad)
What if you could claim a stake in what's set to be the biggest IPO ever… starting with just $500?
Everyone is talking about Elon Musk's SpaceX IPO.
Without Vertiv's high-density cooling and power systems, the latest generation of high-performance chips cannot function at scale.
Following a strong fourth-quarter earnings report that pushed shares near all-time highs of roughly $243, Vertiv has shown it is not just a manufacturing stock, but a structural necessity for the digital economy.
A $15 Billion Signal for Future Growth
On Feb. 11, 2026, Vertiv reported a classic beat-and-raise quarter that fundamentally reset expectations for the company's growth trajectory. The results point to accelerating demand that is increasingly decoupled from broader, slower-moving industrial trends.
In the fourth quarter of 2025, Vertiv reported net sales of $2.88 billion, an organic increase of 19% year-over-year. Profitability outpaced that: Adjusted Earnings Per Share (EPS) reached $1.36, above analyst consensus of $1.29. The company also generated $910 million in adjusted free cash flow, providing ample resources to reinvest in factories and its supply chain.
The Mic-Drop Metric: A $15 Billion Backlog Matters
While revenue growth was strong, the standout metric was the order backlog. Vertiv closed 2025 with a backlog of $15 billion, a staggering 109% increase versus the prior year. This matters because it represents contractually secured demand.
Unlike consumer tech firms that depend heavily on quarterly sales momentum, a backlog of this magnitude means a significant portion of Vertiv's 2026 and 2027 revenue is already essentially locked in. That provides a level of visibility rare in the industrial sector. Management issued bullish guidance for 2026, projecting revenue of $13.25 billion to $13.75 billion and adjusted EPS of $5.97 to $6.07. That implies roughly 43% projected earnings growth and effectively pulls forward the company's long-term targets by nearly two years.
Engineering the Moat: How Vertiv Protects Its Lead
The driving force behind Vertiv's backlog is fundamentally about physics: air is no longer sufficient. Traditional data centers cool servers by circulating cold air through racks. Modern AI clusters, including those using NVIDIA's Blackwell chips, are pushing power densities to 100 kilowatts (kW) per rack and beyond. At those levels, air cannot transfer heat quickly enough to avoid hardware failure.
Vertiv has positioned itself as the market leader in the transition to liquid cooling, including Direct-to-Chip solutions that pump fluid through metal plates attached directly to GPUs. That engineering capability creates a moat against commodity competitors who lack the pedigree to manage high-pressure fluid loops inside expensive server racks.
To deepen this moat, Vertiv completed the $1 billion acquisition of PurgeRite in December 2025. The deal is a classic razor-and-blade strategy: Vertiv sells the hardware, and PurgeRite provides the specialized services to flush, filter, and maintain the complex fluid chemistry. Owning the service layer creates a high-margin, recurring revenue stream that lasts for the life of the data center.
Additionally, the company is working with NVIDIA to develop an 800-volt DC power architecture slated for release in the second half of 2026. Timed to coincide with NVIDIA's next-generation Rubin platform, this launch integrates Vertiv's power systems into the blueprint for future AI factories and helps keep the company the default infrastructure partner for the world's largest tech customers.
Why Trade Wars Won't Stop the Build-Out
Investors have understandably been worried about the new 25% Section 232 tariffs on semiconductors, imposed in January 2026. Trade tensions typically raise costs and dampen demand. However, Vertiv benefits from a regulatory nuance many analysts initially missed.
The presidential proclamation establishing these tariffs includes a key exemption: semiconductor imports destined for U.S. data centers with loads greater than 100 megawatts (MW) are exempt. That policy incentivizes hyperscalers to build large AI clusters within the United States. Since the Americas region is Vertiv's strongest market—posting roughly 50% sales growth in Q4 2025—this exemption effectively creates a regulatory moat around its core customer base and shields them from some cost inflation.
Why Vertiv Commands a Higher Multiple
Vertiv's strengths become even clearer against peers such as Eaton (NYSE: ETN). Eaton is a high-quality industrial, but it recently missed revenue estimates due to exposure to cyclical sectors like automotive and aerospace. By contrast, Vertiv is a purer play on data centers and captures the full velocity of the AI infrastructure boom without the drag of slower-growth legacy industries.
Trading at roughly 40 times forward earnings, Vertiv commands a premium. But when you adjust for growth using the PEG ratio (Price/Earnings-to-Growth), the valuation looks reasonable. With earnings projected to grow about 43% in 2026, the PEG ratio sits near 1.0, suggesting investors are paying a fair price for high-quality growth. Additionally, S&P Global Ratings recently upgraded Vertiv to investment grade (BBB-), a change that lowers the company's cost of capital and broadens its appeal to institutional buyers.
The Toll Booth for the AI Age
Vertiv has moved from a cyclical industrial manufacturer to a secular growth compounder. The AI bottleneck's shift from silicon supply to physical infrastructure has put the company in an enviable spot. With a $15 billion backlog, a protected domestic market, and leadership in critical technologies like liquid cooling and high-voltage power, Vertiv is effectively the toll booth for the AI supercycle.
Customer concentration among the Magnificent Seven remains a risk to monitor, but the company's execution suggests that as the arms race for compute power continues, Vertiv will be the one keeping the lights on and the temperatures down.
Whale Watching: BlackRock's Massive Bet on Nebius Group
Submitted by Jeffrey Neal Johnson. Publication Date: 2/17/2026.
Key Points
- The world's largest asset manager has moved from a passive observer to a top stakeholder by executing an accumulation strategy in the Nebius Group.
- Major technology clients are funding the aggressive infrastructure expansion through prepayments to secure future computing capacity for artificial intelligence.
- The strategic acquisition of a specialized search platform allows Nebius to evolve from a commodity hardware renter into an essential software provider.
- Special Report: [Sponsorship-Ad-6-Format3]
Retail investors live in a world defined by daily headlines. A missed earnings estimate or a slight delay in a product launch can send share prices tumbling as individual traders react to immediate news.
Emotions run high, and decisions are often driven by fear of loss or missing out. The world's largest asset managers, however, play a very different game.
Have $500? Invest in Elon's AI Masterplan (Ad)
What if you could claim a stake in what's set to be the biggest IPO ever… starting with just $500?
Everyone is talking about Elon Musk's SpaceX IPO.
They look at data measured in years, not quarters. They analyze structural shifts in the global economy rather than daily ticker-tape movements.
In the case of Nebius Group (NASDAQ: NBIS), recent market activity has been volatile after a mixed fourth-quarter earnings report.
While the market debated the timing of the company's revenue and its short-term misses, regulatory filings showed that institutional investors were quietly executing a large accumulation strategy.
The latest 13F filings, quarterly reports that disclose the holdings of major investment firms, reveal that BlackRock Inc. (NYSE: BLK), the world's largest asset manager, has taken a substantial position in the artificial intelligence infrastructure company. While retail investors were nervous, BlackRock was buying — a level of conviction that can create a psychological floor for Nebius's stock price and suggests professionals see value where others see risk.
Inside the 9.4 Million Share Purchase
The raw data from the regulatory filing tells a story of aggressive accumulation. According to the 13F-HR form filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 12, 2026, BlackRock owned 9,431,400 shares of Nebius Group as of Dec. 31, 2025. Based on the closing price at the end of that reporting period, the position was valued at roughly $789 million.
To appreciate the magnitude of the move, compare it with the previous quarter:
- Previous Filing: BlackRock reported holding 23,866 shares in November 2025.
- Current Filing: BlackRock reports holding 9,431,400 shares in December 2025.
- The Delta: This represents a quarter-over-quarter increase of approximately 39,418%.
Institutional investing often begins with toe-hold positions — small stakes used to monitor a company without committing significant capital. Moving from roughly 23,000 shares to over 9.4 million indicates a strategic shift from monitoring to high-conviction ownership.
BlackRock has effectively moved from passive observer to top-tier stakeholder. This volume of buying is rarely accidental or merely an index rebalance; it typically represents a deliberate capital allocation by one of the most sophisticated investment teams in the world. They are not just testing the waters; they're committing significant capital.
Prepaid Success: The $20 Billion Blueprint
Why would an institutional giant pour nearly $800 million into a company that missed Wall Street's revenue estimates? The answer likely lies in Nebius's aggressive 2026 guidance and how that spending is financed.
In its recent earnings report, Nebius management forecasted capital expenditures (CAPEX) of $16 billion to $20 billion for 2026. To an inexperienced investor, spending $20 billion might look like reckless cash burn. Historically, companies that spend faster than they earn are considered high-risk. Institutional analysts view this situation differently.
In the current AI infrastructure shortage, firms generally do not spend billions unless customers are lined up. BlackRock appears to be buying the revenue backlog.
- The Funding Model: Nebius says roughly 60% of the planned spending is funded through customer prepayments.
- The Customers: Tech giants like Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and Meta (NASDAQ: META) are effectively paying Nebius upfront to build data centers and install the GPUs they need.
That structure materially de-risks the investment. Nebius's Annualized Run Rate (ARR) reached $1.2 billion in December 2025, and management guided 2026 revenue between $3 billion and $3.4 billion. By taking this position, BlackRock is effectively buying a piece of the physical infrastructure of the AI revolution — servers and power supply secured by contracts with some of the world's most creditworthy tech customers. It's a bet on a contractor fulfilling signed orders, not on a startup finding customers.
Strategic Foresight: The Agentic AI Pivot
A key aspect of institutional investing is foresight: predicting where a company will be in six months rather than reacting to where it is today. BlackRock established this large position before Nebius announced its latest strategic pivot, suggesting its analysts correctly modeled the company's trajectory.
On Feb. 10, 2026, Nebius announced the acquisition of Tavily for about $275 million. Tavily specializes in Agentic AI, enabling models to search the web in real time to answer complex questions. The acquisition moves Nebius up the value chain.
If a company only rents out servers, it is selling a commodity and risks losing customers to cheaper providers. By integrating Tavily's search capabilities into its cloud offering, Nebius shifts from a pure hardware provider to a software-enabled platform.
That makes the product stickier: customers are less likely to leave because the software is integral to their workflows. BlackRock's entry suggests its analysts value Nebius as a future software platform rather than merely a hardware utility, which supports a higher valuation.
The Geopolitical Discount Is Gone
For much of the past two years, Nebius struggled with uncertainty around its separation from its former parent, Yandex. Many investors avoided the stock because of perceived geopolitical risk and the complexity of the divestment.
BlackRock's dramatic position increase sends a clear message: that narrative is fading. The smart money appears to have done its due diligence and now views Nebius as a Dutch-headquartered global AI player. While retail traders may worry about a single quarter's revenue miss, BlackRock is focused on the 2026 roadmap — a company executing a $20 billion infrastructure expansion backed by major tech customers and evolving into a software platform.
For individual investors, the disconnect between short-term price volatility and long-term institutional accumulation offers a clear signal: the builders of the AI age are still just getting started.
This message is a sponsored email provided by Weiss Ratings, a third-party advertiser of MarketBeat. Why did I get this email content?.
11780 US Highway 1,
Palm Beach Gardens, FL 33408-3080
Would you like to edit your e-mail notification preferences or unsubscribe from our mailing list?
If you have questions or concerns about your account, please contact our U.S. based support team at contact@marketbeat.com.
If you would no longer like to receive promotional emails from MarketBeat advertisers, you can unsubscribe or manage your mailing preferences here.
© 2006-2026 MarketBeat Media, LLC. All rights protected.
345 North Reid Place #620, Sioux Falls, South Dakota 57103. U.S.A..
No comments:
Post a Comment