GE Vernova drops 11% as AI power stocks slide

The selloff in AI power stocks wasn't triggered by anything GE Vernova itself announced. Instead, the slide began on Oct. 14, when hotter US inflation data revived worries about borrowing costs and CoreWeave's shares and bonds fell as investors questioned how the AI build-out gets paid for. Susquehanna trimmed its price target by $30 that morning to $1,270 while keeping a Positive rating. On Tuesday, the trade slid again on AI-spending fears and oil above $110, with GE Vernova down 2.0% and Vertiv and Bloom Energy falling alongside it.

Even a large deal failed to lift the stock. On Oct. 15, Venture Global announced power and grid deals with GE Vernova and Baker Hughes worth up to $17.2 billion, yet GE Vernova fell 1.6%. Very little of that is firm: Venture Global expects to order its first power island by the end of 2026, eight more are reserved with GE Vernova with orders expected from early 2027, and apart from reservation fees nobody has to buy the rest. Even if GE Vernova kept all $17.2 billion through 2034, it would add roughly 10% to Power segment sales a year.

The pullback has pushed GE Vernova's forward P/E closer to 42x, near the bottom of its past-year range; its average over the past year was 55x and it hit nearly 70x in April. Analysts still expect normalized EPS to more than double, from $15.21 this year to $36.19 in 2028, making the third-quarter results due before the open on Oct. 28 the next test for the stock.