Key Takeaways
- Vistra fell 16% in a week to a new 52-week low, with Vertiv, after Texas elected a governor who promised to halt new data centers.
- Vistra had hedged about 94% of its expected 2027 output as of early August, and most of its new gas plants are in PJM, where a peer sees strong demand.
- A Texas moratorium would hit Vistra’s 2028 first, when only about 72% was hedged.
- The drop looks overdone, and Vistra’s Nov. 6 report is the next test.
Vistra (VST) stock is down 16% in the past week and closed Wednesday at a new 52-week low. It followed Tuesday’s vote, when Gina Hinojosa unseated Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on a promise to halt new data centers.
Vertiv (VRT) fell 16% too, in a broad AI infrastructure selloff.
Texas is the worry
Texas holds 19,858 MW of Vistra’s 43,641 MW of plants, and Wells Fargo puts 27% of planned US data center gigawatts in the state.
Vertiv’s orders haven’t slowed yet: organic orders more than doubled in the third quarter. But Schwab’s Liz Ann Sonders posted on X Tuesday that, per Baird, third-quarter data center project cancellations “were almost larger than entirety of 2025 and 2024 combined.” Vertiv’s next report will show whether its customers are among them.
Most of the next two years is already sold
Going into the vote, analysts expected Vistra’s normalized EPS to jump 83% this year and keep climbing through 2028:
I don’t expect the election to move 2027 much: Vistra had hedged about 94% of its expected generation for that year as of Aug. 3. A Texas slowdown would show up in 2028 first, when only about 72% was hedged.
And the Cogentrix deal added about 5,500 MW of gas plants, only 583 MW of them in Texas. Most of the rest are in PJM, where Talen Energy (TLN) guided to 2027 adjusted EBITDA about 26% above 2026’s on what CEO Mac McFarland called “strong PJM fundamentals.”
TIKR tracks 23 analysts on Vistra. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on Vistra, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See Vistra’s Analyst Ratings
Thursday is the next test
Vistra was cheap even before Wednesday, at 13x forward earnings at Monday’s close against a five-year average of 15x:
Wednesday’s drop took it to about 12x, and the $205 consensus target is 71% above that close.
I think the market is overreacting to a moratorium that would bite in 2028 at the earliest.
Of course, Vistra reports Thursday, and in August the CFO said 2027 adjusted EBITDA was trending toward the low end of its $7.4-7.8 billion range. A weaker number, or any sign of Texas buyers pulling back, would make this drop look more reasonable.
So what is Vistra stock actually worth?
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Disclaimer:
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