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GE Vernova delivered another strong quarter and raised full-year financial guidance again. Order growth is something to behold. Still, shares were down in early trading.
Wednesday morning, the maker of power generation equipment reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, of $1.2 billion from sales of $11.1 billion.
Wall Street was looking for Ebitda of $1.3 billion, from sales of $10.8 billion. A year ago, GE Vernova reported Ebitda of about $800 million from sales of $9.1 billion.
Ebitda was a little light, but the company raised full-year guidance. For 2026, GE Vernova now expects sales of about $46 billion and Ebitda of about $6 billion. Prior guidance given in April called for sales of $45 billion and Ebitda of about $5.9 billion. It was the second consecutive quarter GE Vernova management raised its 2026 outlook.
What’s more, orders were stellar, coming in at $24.2 billion, up 88% year over year, and up from $18.3 billion in the first quarter. (Orders grew 71% year over year in the first quarter, and Vernova stock rose 13.7% after reporting first-quarter numbers.)
Order activity is “the affirmation of strong growth for longer,” says GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik. His company’s backlog is now $176 billion, and almost half of that is for delivery in 2029 and beyond.
Investors agreed initially. Shares were up almost 5% at $1,131.66. But gains quickly vanished, leaving the stock down 6.1% at $1,012.56, while the S&P 500 was flat and the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.4% in early trading.
The dip is a concern. GE Vernova’s earnings and its stock reaction to earnings are important tests for the AI trade.
Vernova is now an AI stock. Demand for its equipment is booming amid the AI data center buildout, sending GE Vernova stock to levels no one expected. Coming into the week, shares were above $1,000, up roughly 700% since the company was spun out of GE Aerospace in 2024.
Few can credibly claim to have seen those gains coming. The average analyst price target for GE Vernova shares was about $180, shortly after the spin. Now, it’s about $1,130.
Earnings and orders passed the test. It was another beat-and-raise quarter. What’s more, profit margins will improve as backlog turns into revenue. (Recent orders are at better prices than past orders.)
The stock is down now, but investors should wait until Thursday evening to decide anything about investors’ AI sentiment, says Travis Prentice, chief investor officer at Informed Momentum Company. He, as the firm’s name suggests, is a momentum investor, using stock price and fundamental signals, such as earnings growth and earnings estimate revisions, to help identify winning stocks.
Prentice suggests comparing GE Vernova’s stock on Thursday, a couple of trading sessions after results are released, to prices on Tuesday. That offers investors useful information about stock and market sentiment.
“Once you see something happen, see the reaction in the market… then make your decision,” says Prentice. “That has a much higher probability of working in your favor than prediction.”
Up relative to the market, of course, is good. Down signals that investors are worried about AI, which could have implications for countless stocks, including semiconductors, utilities, industrials, and technology shares.
Everything is AI these days, which is why everyone needs to pay attention to GE Vernova earnings.
Coming into the week, GE Vernova stock was up about 62% year to date and up about 84% over the past 12 months. Shares were also down about 11% from a 52-week high of almost $1,200 per share.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]