Al Root

GE Vernova is facing high expectations heading into its earnings report. New orders and guidance are the tools the company can use to clear the bar.

The maker of power generation equipment reports third-quarter results Wednesday morning. Wall Street is looking for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, of $787 million, and earnings per share of $1.72 from sales of $9.1 billion, according to FactSet.

A year ago, in the third quarter of 2024, GE Vernova reported Ebitda of $243 million, a per-share loss of 35 cents, and sales of $8.9 billion. Earnings are improving with better profit margins. Second-quarter Ebitda profit margins were 8.1%, up 2.1 percentage points year over year.

BofA Securities analyst Andrew Obin projects $12.4 billion in new orders in the third quarter, about 1.3 times revenue.

"The demand backdrop continues to improve, with cloud [computing] giants signing 11 gigawatts of new power purchase agreements in first-half 2025," he wrote in a preview report.

Data centers and artificial-intelligence computing are driving up electricity demand in the U.S., and GE Vernova products are essential for meeting that higher demand. Surging demand is one reason Obin is bullish. He rates GE Vernova shares Buy and has a $725 price target for shares.

Along with orders, investors will be looking for new guidance. In July, management said they expected full-year results to come in at the high end of the ranges provided earlier in the year. For sales, the range was $36 billion to $37 billion. Ebitda margins were expected to be in the "high-single digits" range, implying 2025 Ebitda of between $2.9 billion $3.3 billion. Wall Street currently projects 2025 Ebitda of $3.4 billion.

"We see scope for a modest Ebitda beat and raise," wrote Wolfe Research analyst Nigel Coe in a preview report. "But the focus will be on another quarter of impressive backlog growth in gas equipment."

He rates shares Hold and doesn't have a price target for shares.

Valuation might be one reason for his Hold rating. Coming into Wednesday trading, GE Vernova shares were up roughly 80% year to date. Such gains have left Vernova stock trading for about 47 times estimated 2026 earnings, up from about 31 times early in 2025.

Share have been hot, but through midday trading, the stock was down about 6% over the past month. The recent dip might end up helping the stock after earnings, Coe says. Lower share prices lower investor expectations.

Options markets recently implied that shares would move about 6%, up or down, following earnings. Shares risen an average of about 5% over the past four quarterly reports. One of those gains was a 14.6% jump in July after the company reported better-than-expected second-quarter numbers.

Ge Vernova stock fell 0.9% midday on Tuesday to $588.98, ahead of earnings, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average were down 0.1% and up 0.3%, respectively.

Write to Al Root at allen.root@dowjones.com

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October 21, 2025 14:49 ET (18:49 GMT)

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