Key Stats for Vistra Stock
- 52-Week Range: $133 to $220
- Current Price: $135
- Street Mean Target: $225
- Street High Target: $320
- Analyst Consensus: 14 Buys / 4 Outperforms / 0 Holds / 1 Underperform / 1 Sell
- TIKR Model Target (Dec. 2030): $184
Vistra Swings to $980M Q1 Profit as Power Demand Delivers a Record Quarter
Vistra Corp. (VST) is one of the largest competitive power generators in the United States, operating a fleet of nuclear, natural gas, and coal-to-gas assets across the ERCOT and PJM grids, and it posted a record first-quarter result in Q1 2026 as surging electricity demand transformed what could have been a weather-challenged period into its strongest calendar Q1 on record.
The headline number is $1.494 billion in adjusted EBITDA for the quarter, up roughly 20% from Q1 2025 and nearly 85% from Q1 2024, driven by higher realized energy and capacity prices in both Texas and the East.
Net income swung to $980 million from a loss of $317 million in the same quarter a year ago, a figure primarily boosted by unrealized mark-to-market gains on derivative positions alongside the underlying operational improvement.
Revenue came in at $5.64 billion, a 43.4% year-over-year jump from the Q1 2025 actual of $3.93 billion, narrowly missing the $5.65 billion consensus estimate by less than 0.2%.
The Texas segment delivered $586 million in adjusted segment EBITDA, up more than 19% year-over-year, even as Q1 2026 ranked as the second-warmest first quarter in ERCOT since 1950, undercutting retail volumes but allowing the commercial team to optimize generation positioning across milder conditions.
The East segment, covering PJM and New England, was the clearest standout with $801 million in adjusted EBITDA, up 55.8% year-over-year, a result CEO Jim Burke attributed to higher capacity revenues in PJM and the contribution from the Lotus acquisition completed in late 2025.
Vistra reaffirmed its full-year 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $6.8 billion to $7.6 billion and its adjusted free cash flow before growth guidance of $3.925 billion to $4.725 billion, and notably, neither figure includes any contribution from the pending $4.7 billion Cogentrix acquisition expected to close in the second half of 2026, nor from the long-term power purchase agreements signed with Meta for roughly 2,600 megawatts at Vistra’s PJM nuclear sites.
Vistra Stock Holds 18 Buy-Side Ratings as Wall Street Prices In the Power Demand Supercycle
The investment case for Vistra stock centers not on what the company earned last quarter but on what the structural electricity demand environment implies for its earnings trajectory over the next three to five years.
Eighteen analysts currently rate VST a buy or outperform, with no hold ratings and just two negatives (one underperform, one sell), producing one of the most lopsided bullish distributions in the utilities sector.
The Wall Street mean price target as of May 19 stands at $225, implying around 67% upside from Vistra’s current price of $135 a gap that has widened materially as VST has pulled back roughly 39% from its 52-week high of $220.
Consensus EBITDA for Q2 2026 is projected at around $1.79 billion, up around 34% year-over-year, with the full-year 2026 midpoint of Vistra’s own guidance range landing at $7.2 billion, a figure the company has hedged significantly through its comprehensive hedging program already covering the majority of expected generation through 2027.
The fundamental case rests on a structural load growth thesis that Vistra’s management has articulated consistently for nearly two years: ERCOT load growing at 5% to 6% annually through 2030, PJM at 2% to 3%, driven by hyperscaler data center buildouts, industrial electrification, and EV adoption, not a speculative forecast but a pace management says is already materializing in interconnection queues and physical load connections.
Fitch upgraded Vistra to investment-grade BBB– in March 2026, following S&P’s upgrade in December 2025, a milestone that triggered fallaway provisions in senior secured debt agreements and released liens on assets, structurally reducing Vistra’s cost of capital heading into the next leg of its capital deployment cycle.
With $10 billion of projected cash generation across 2026 and 2027, Vistra has already deployed approximately $525 million in share repurchases in the first four months of the year, returning approximately $600 million to shareholders year-to-date when combined with dividends.
TIKR’s Valuation Model Take on VST
TIKR’s base case values Vistra at $184 per share by December 2030, anchored to a mid-case revenue CAGR of around 7% and a net income margin assumption of around 15%, assumptions directly supported by the structural load growth Vistra has now contracted through its Meta PPA and is actively expanding via the Cogentrix acquisition and 4,500 megawatts of organic development projects.
At 14.66x NTM P/E against a 3-month historical mean of near 18x, with EPS growth consensus running at around 90% year-over-year for Q2 2026 and full-year 2027 EPS estimates pointing to continued double-digit compounding, Vistra stock is undervalued by a meaningful margin for investors willing to underwrite the power demand case through the end of the decade.
The entire bull and bear argument for Vistra stock comes down to a single question: does U.S. electricity load grow at the pace management projects, or does it disappoint?
Is Vistra stock undervalued right now?
TIKR’s base case values VST at $184 per share, implying around 37% upside from the current price of $135, with a mid-case IRR of around 5% annually through December 2030. With 18 buy-side analyst ratings and a Wall Street mean target of $225, the consensus view is that Vistra stock is trading at a significant discount to intrinsic value.
The key variable is whether ERCOT load growth reaches the 5% to 6% annual pace management projects by 2028.
What is the price target for Vistra stock?
The Wall Street mean price target for VST as of May 19 is $225, implying around 67% upside from the current price of $135.
The street high target stands at $320, and 18 of 20 analysts with active ratings hold a buy or outperform view.
Meanwhile, TIKR’s base case sits at $184, with the high scenario reaching $260 by December 2030, based on a revenue CAGR of around 8% and net income margins expanding to around 16%.
Should You Invest in Vistra Corp.?
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