Infrastructure and reshoring
Heavy civil construction, aggregates and cement, steel, and the contractors and equipment makers behind federal infrastructure investment and the broader reshoring of US industrial capacity.
What is the infrastructure and reshoring theme?
The infrastructure and reshoring theme groups the builders, materials suppliers, and equipment makers that turn federal spending and factory construction into physical capacity. Two forces sit underneath it. Infrastructure is the public works layer: highways, bridges, water systems, broadband, and the electrical grid. Reshoring is the private industrial layer: semiconductor fabs, battery plants, and the supply chains companies are rebuilding inside the US rather than overseas.
Walnut's infrastructure and reshoring list spans the full chain that both forces feed. Aggregates and cement come from Vulcan Materials (VMC) and Martin Marietta (MLM), structural steel from Nucor (NUE), mechanical and electrical contracting from Comfort Systems (FIX), Quanta Services (PWR), and EMCOR (EME), site development from Sterling (STRL), distribution from WESCO (WCC), large engineering and construction from Fluor (FLR), and equipment from Deere (DE). Each name earns revenue when projects break ground, so the theme reads as a single bet on the US building cycle.
How does reshoring work, and why is it driving US infrastructure spending?
Reshoring is the relocation of manufacturing back to the US, and in 2026 it is funded by three overlapping policies. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act directs federal money into public works. The CHIPS Act subsidizes semiconductor fab construction. The Inflation Reduction Act incentivizes battery, EV, and clean energy facilities. Each new fab or factory is itself an infrastructure project, which is why reshoring and infrastructure spending move together rather than as separate stories.
That factory construction is where the infrastructure and reshoring theme connects to its construction-side constituents. A new fab needs site preparation and earthworks, the kind of heavy civil work Sterling (STRL) and Fluor (FLR) perform. It needs aggregates and cement for foundations and concrete, supplied by Vulcan (VMC) and Martin Marietta (MLM), and structural steel for the building shell from Nucor (NUE). Reshoring turns a policy announcement into a multi-year stream of orders for the engineering, aggregates, and steel names in the theme.
How do infrastructure and reshoring companies make money? Construction versus the electrical and industrial enabling layer
The construction, engineering, and aggregates side earns money on the physical structure. Aggregates producers like Vulcan (VMC) and Martin Marietta (MLM) sell crushed stone, sand, and cement by volume, with pricing that holds up well because the material is heavy and expensive to ship far from each quarry. Nucor (NUE) sells the steel that frames buildings and bridges. Site developers and engineering contractors such as Sterling (STRL) and Fluor (FLR) bill for moving earth, pouring foundations, and managing large projects end to end. Their revenue scales with how many infrastructure and reshoring projects are under construction.
The electrical and industrial layer earns money making a reshored factory actually run. A fab or data center is useless without power, climate control, and wiring, so mechanical and electrical contractors like Comfort Systems (FIX) and EMCOR (EME) install the systems inside the building, Quanta (PWR) builds the grid connections and transmission that feed power to it, and WESCO (WCC) distributes the electrical and industrial gear all of them consume. Deere (DE) supplies the construction machinery used across both layers. Together these two sub-angles are why the infrastructure and reshoring theme captures both the shell of a project and the systems that bring it to life.
What gets a stock into the Infrastructure and reshoring theme?
Revenue tied to construction of physical infrastructure (highways, fabs, factories, power, water) or to the materials and equipment those projects consume.
Infrastructure and reshoring stocks
Every public name that fits the Infrastructure and reshoring thesis, with the rationale for inclusion. Click any ticker for the full stock guide. The basket above starts equal-weighted; you set your own target weights inside Walnut.
Largest US construction aggregates producer with structural pricing power in southeastern and southwestern US.
Second-largest US aggregates producer plus a Texas cement franchise in the strongest US construction market.
Largest US steel producer; structural steel consumed by fabs, data centers, and infrastructure.
MEP contractor across non-residential construction including data centers and fabs.
Electrical infrastructure contractor for utility grid investment and renewable interconnection.
Heavy civil and site development across data centers, distribution, and transportation infrastructure.
MEP contractor with broad industrial and commercial exposure.
Electrical and industrial distribution across utility, industrial, and construction end markets.
Large EPC contractor across LNG, infrastructure, government, and advanced manufacturing.
Construction equipment franchise (alongside agriculture); infrastructure investment supports through-cycle.
How to invest in Infrastructure and reshoring
There are three common ways to express the infrastructure and reshoring theme. The first is buying individual construction and industrial stocks directly, which lets you weight the parts of the theme you find most compelling: aggregates through Vulcan (VMC) or Martin Marietta (MLM), steel through Nucor (NUE), contracting through Quanta (PWR), Comfort Systems (FIX), and Sterling (STRL), distribution through WESCO (WCC), engineering through Fluor (FLR), and equipment through Deere (DE). The tradeoff is that picking and sizing ten names yourself takes work and concentrates risk if you choose only a few. The second way is an ETF proxy. PAVE (Global X US Infrastructure Development) is the closest pure-play on the infrastructure and reshoring thesis and holds most of the Walnut list, while broader sector funds like XLI capture infrastructure as one slice of industrials. An ETF is simpler and diversified, but it spreads your money across many smaller holdings, so a fund like PAVE dilutes the specific construction-and-reshoring exposure you may actually want.
The third way is building an infrastructure and reshoring basket in Walnut, which is what most users do because it sits between the other two. You describe the thesis to Walnut's AI assistant, for example "US infrastructure and reshoring construction and electrical beneficiaries," and it proposes a focused set of constituents and target weights drawn from names like VMC, NUE, PWR, FIX, STRL, WCC, and DE. You review every proposed constituent and weight, then fund the basket through your own connected broker. Walnut never trades for you: you approve every order before it is placed, and the basket then tracks as a single infrastructure and reshoring performance line you can compare against PAVE or XLI. Walnut is not an investment adviser, so this describes how to build the theme rather than a recommendation to buy it.
ETFs used as passive proxies for Infrastructure and reshoring
If you want the theme as a single ticker rather than as a basket, these are the ETFs people most commonly use. Each has trade-offs (concentration, expense ratio, sector overlap) covered in the individual ETF guides.
FAQ
What is the infrastructure and reshoring theme?
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Infrastructure and reshoring groups companies that benefit from the multi-year US infrastructure spending cycle (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) and the parallel reshoring of US industrial capacity (CHIPS Act, Inflation Reduction Act, broader supply chain diversification). Includes heavy civil construction, aggregates and cement, steel, electrical infrastructure contractors, distributors, and equipment makers.
Which stocks are in the infrastructure theme?
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Ten names on Walnut as of early 2026: VMC (Vulcan Materials, aggregates), MLM (Martin Marietta, aggregates and cement), NUE (Nucor, steel), FIX (Comfort Systems, MEP), PWR (Quanta, electrical infrastructure), STRL (Sterling, site development), EME (EMCOR, MEP), WCC (WESCO, electrical distribution), FLR (Fluor, EPC), and DE (Deere, construction equipment).
What ETFs cover infrastructure?
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PAVE (Global X US Infrastructure Development) is the closest pure-play, including most of the names on the Walnut list. IFRA (iShares US Infrastructure) is broader. XLI (Industrial Select Sector SPDR) at 0.09% is the standard S&P 500 industrials sector ETF, which includes infrastructure as a subset. IYT (iShares Transportation Average) covers the transports specifically.
What's driving the infrastructure cycle?
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Three structural drivers. (1) Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: $1.2 trillion allocated to highways, bridges, broadband, water, and grid over five years. (2) Reshoring incentivized by the CHIPS Act and IRA: ~$200 billion in announced semiconductor fab buildouts plus battery and EV facilities. (3) AI data center buildouts: hyperscalers committing hundreds of billions to new data center capacity through 2027. All three drive aggregates, steel, contracting, and equipment demand.
What's the biggest infrastructure stock?
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Deere & Company (DE) by market cap, though much of Deere's revenue is agricultural equipment rather than infrastructure-pure. Among aggregates and contractors, Vulcan Materials (VMC) and Quanta Services (PWR) are the largest pure-plays. Among electrical distribution and contracting, EMCOR (EME) and WESCO (WCC) are the largest.
How do I invest in infrastructure?
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Two approaches. (1) Buy PAVE for diversified passive exposure to the infrastructure thesis. (2) Build a Walnut basket spanning aggregates (VMC or MLM), steel (NUE), contracting (PWR + FIX + STRL), distribution (WCC), and equipment (DE). Most users do option 2 because PAVE's holdings are spread across many smaller names; a 6-8 stock concentrated basket captures the thesis more directly.
Are aggregates a good investment?
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Walnut isn't an investment adviser. Factually, aggregates pricing has been one of the most durable parts of the infrastructure cycle: VMC and MLM have demonstrated 5-10% annual pricing power across cycles because aggregates are heavy and expensive to transport, which creates local pricing dominance for each quarry. The combination of structural pricing power plus federal infrastructure tailwinds explains why aggregates valuations have rerated significantly.
What is the difference between Vulcan and Martin Marietta?
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Both are large US aggregates producers with nearly identical business models. Vulcan (VMC) is concentrated in southeastern and southwestern US states. Martin Marietta (MLM) is concentrated in similar regions plus has a meaningful Texas cement franchise from the TXI acquisition. Returns over multi-year windows have been close; both have demonstrated similar pricing power and execution discipline.
Is the infrastructure cycle long-term or short-term?
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Multi-year, but not permanent. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding runs through 2026; reauthorization by Congress is the central question for the next leg. Reshoring of fab and battery capacity is a 5-10 year construction cycle. AI data center buildouts have multi-year visibility but depend on hyperscaler capex commitment. Most analysts expect elevated infrastructure investment through 2027-2028; what happens after depends on policy and macro.
What are the risks of an infrastructure basket?
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Three. (1) Federal funding reauthorization: the next Congress reset of infrastructure spending is the central policy risk. (2) Labor inflation: skilled trades labor has been the binding constraint on contracting margins; further inflation compresses margins. (3) Equipment cycle: construction equipment demand (Deere, Caterpillar) is cyclical even when the underlying infrastructure spending is steady, because customers buy ahead and behind project schedules.
Can I build an infrastructure basket in Walnut?
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Yes. Tell Walnut's AI assistant something like 'US infrastructure and reshoring construction beneficiaries' and it proposes a 5-8 stock basket. A typical structure: VMC for aggregates, NUE for steel, PWR and FIX for contracting, WCC for distribution, optionally DE for equipment. You set the weights.
How does infrastructure overlap with data center power?
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Significantly. Several names appear in both themes: FIX, PWR, STRL, EME, WCC. Data center power is a tighter focus on the AI-specific subset of infrastructure spending. The infrastructure theme is broader, including federal highway and bridge funding, reshoring buildouts, and steel cycle exposure. If you build both as separate baskets, expect meaningful overlap and adjust position sizing accordingly.
Is Nucor an infrastructure stock?
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Yes. Structural steel is consumed in virtually every infrastructure project: highway bridges, data center buildings, fab structures, EV battery facilities. Nucor is the largest US steel producer using electric arc furnace technology, which is structurally lower-carbon and lower-cost than blast furnace alternatives. Its through-cycle dividend growth (51+ consecutive years) makes it dual-purpose for infrastructure baskets and dividend growth baskets.
Build the Infrastructure and reshoring basket in Walnut
Walnut's AI assistant takes the thesis above, proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights, and lets you fund the basket through your existing broker. You approve every order; we never trade on your behalf.
Other themes
- AI infrastructure. Picks and shovels of the AI buildout: GPUs, networking, foundries, and the software platforms training the largest models.
- Data center power and cooling. The grid, switchgear, liquid cooling, and electrical contracting that AI data centers can't run without.
- Semiconductors. The full chip stack: designers, foundries, equipment makers, materials suppliers, and packaging specialists.
- Defense and modernization. Software, sensors, and specialty materials at the center of US and allied defense buildouts.
- Critical materials. Rare earths, specialty metals, and strategic materials at the center of supply chain reshoring.
Walnut is informational, not investment advice. Theme membership is descriptive, not prescriptive; nothing on this page should be read as a recommendation. Always verify current financials and your own circumstances before investing.