GE Vernova has been a surpriseAI winner, providing equipment that willpower data centersnow and in the future. Investors will get a look at how bright that future looks when management meets with investors next week.
Expectations are running high. Those expectations might have driven some profit-taking early in the day, before the big event, slated for Dec. 9.
Shares of the power-generation and grid-technology company traded as low as $575.38 before rallying to close at $601.97, up 0.1%. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% and 0.9%, respectively.
The lows of the day at left GE Vernova shares down over the past month, but still up about 75% for the year. GE Vernova split off from GE Aerospace in early 2024, with shares starting out at roughly $140 apiece.
Things simply got better faster than anyone imagined. Wall Street currently projects 2028 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, of $9.4 billion, according to FactSet. At the time of the spinoff, that estimate was closer to $4.6 billion.
There is only one problem with the 2028 projections. They are far ahead of company guidance. At GE Vernova’s prior analyst event in December 2024, the company outlined plans to generate roughly $6.3 billion in 2028 Ebitda. Demand for power and power equipment has continued to improve, but the gap represents a risk for the stock heading into the Dec. 9 investor meeting.
Investors are expecting a guidance bump. JPMorgan analyst Mark Strouse surveyed clients and found them “overwhelmingly bullish on [GE Vernova] stock over the next 12 months.”
He isn’t worried, though. The update to 2028 targets will be important, but it’s increasingly “old news…GE Vernova is set up to see many years of growth and margin expansion beyond 2028,” wrote Strouse in a Wednesday report. “And that incremental commentary on the 2030s could have the potential to be a more important topic.”
Along with being attentive to guidance updates, Stouse is looking for details about GE Vernova’s business inside data centers and its capital-allocation plans, including to the company’s nuclear business. GE Vernova makes and services nuclear reactors in a partnership with Hitachi.
Strouse rates shares Buy and has a $740 price target for the stock. Overall, 65% of analysts covering GE Vernova shares rate them Buy, according to FactSet. The average Buy-rating ratio for stocks in the S&P 500 is about 55%. The average analyst price target for GE Vernova stock is about $689 per share.
The Street is relatively bullish on GE Vernova. Investors like the stock, too. Now the company has to live up to those lofty expectations.
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