Physical AI basket: Symbotic is the broken name, not Teradyne
Hypothesis Opus 5 · Research Sonnet 5 · Writing Sonnet 5 · Prompt v1.0
The AI2 robotics cohort's -11% average 30-day move hides a split three-plus months in the making: Rockwell and Cognex remain in sustained strongly bullish bands on real order growth, Teradyne's recent band break traces to sector-wide semiconductor-test contagion rather than its robotics unit, and Symbotic has actually been the cohort's broken member since April on execution and governance concerns, not Teradyne.
| Ticker | Company | Segment | Trend · 13mo | 30D | 1Y |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SYM | Symbotic | Industrial Automation & Controls | ⚠️ Emerging Bear | −4.3% | −20.4% |
ROK | Rockwell Automation | Industrial Automation & Controls | 🟢 Cont. Bull | −4.8% | +31.2% |
CGNX | Cognex | Precision Motion & Sensors | 🟢 Cont. Bull | −15.4% | +69.7% |
TER | Teradyne | Semiconduct Equipment | 🟢 Cont. Bull | −31.0% | +253.5% |
12-month price & trend
| Ticker | Mkt cap | P/E | P/E fwd | P/S | P/S fwd | P/GP | P/GP fwd | EV/EBITDA | FCF yld |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SYM | $27.2B | 442.1x | 77.9x | 10.3x | 9.7x | 47.6x | 44.9x | 420.0x | 2.7% |
ROK | $49.5B | 41.6x | 33.7x | 5.5x | 5.5x | 10.1x | 10.0x | 29.6x | 3.0% |
CGNX | $11.1B | 63.4x | 44.5x | 10.2x | 10.0x | 14.8x | 14.5x | 38.9x | 2.4% |
| Ticker | Mkt cap | P/E | P/E fwd | P/S | P/S fwd | P/GP | P/GP fwd | EV/EBITDA | FCF yld |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
TER | $69.3B | 60.5x | 48.1x | 15.5x | 13.5x | 26.2x | 22.7x | 47.5x | 1.2% |
Consensus projections
| Ticker | FY2026E | FY2027E | FY2028E | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
SYM | Revenue | +25.7% | +29.1% | +23.6% |
| EPS | +123.9% | +54.0% | −2.4% | |
ROK | Revenue | +9.9% | +5.5% | +6.3% |
| EPS | +31.2% | +12.2% | +11.9% | |
CGNX | Revenue | +13.2% | +8.9% | +10.4% |
| EPS | +55.4% | +20.7% | +22.8% | |
TER | Revenue | +67.0% | +21.3% | +24.5% |
| EPS | +158.9% | +27.6% | +31.5% |
Forward fiscal years only. Blank means no analyst coverage for that year.
The blended number is misleading
The cohort's -11.1% 30-day average looks like a uniform pullback, but it's really an artifact of averaging two very different stories. Teradyne (TER) fell 30.8% over 30 days while Cognex (CGNX) slipped 11.7%, Rockwell (ROK) was essentially flat at -2.3%, and Symbotic (SYM) was actually up 0.5% over the same narrow window. Zoom out to 90 days and the picture flips entirely: CGNX +12.8%, ROK +17.7%, TER +4.7% — while SYM is down 26.2%, the clear multi-month laggard. SYM has sat in strongly bearish or mildly bearish territory continuously since April 1, not for the last 30 days.
Rockwell and Cognex are the quiet holds
ROK flipped to a strongly bullish band by May 6 and has held it since, backed by North America discrete/warehousing orders up over 60% and organic growth around 10% in its most recent quarter, plus a $2 billion, five-year domestic manufacturing capacity commitment including a new greenfield Wisconsin site. CGNX has held strongly bullish for roughly 90 days, with logistics posting its ninth straight quarter of double-digit growth alongside packaging, electronics and semiconductor end markets — its July pullback occurred ahead of an August 5 earnings date, consistent with pre-print positioning rather than a fundamentals break.
Teradyne's break is semi-test, not robotics
Teradyne's July slide coincided with Q3 guidance that actually beat consensus on both EPS and revenue, with the drop attributed to sector-wide memory-oversupply and AI-valuation jitters rather than a company-specific miss. Its robotics segment (Universal Robots/MiR) posted its fourth straight quarter of growth, up 32% year over year, with an e-commerce customer expected to roughly triple its contribution in 2026 — the robotics thesis looks intact even as the stock band broke.
Symbotic is the real crack
Symbotic's stock decline traces to SoftBank-affiliate insider selling, a Goldman Sachs downgrade to Sell over GreenBox joint-venture concerns, and a margin disappointment despite 23% top-line growth and a $22.7 billion backlog — an execution and governance story distinct from the demand backdrop for the rest of the cohort.
The trailing-year +87% cohort average is overwhelmingly a Teradyne (+254%) and Cognex (+76%) story; Symbotic is actually down for the year.