AI in action · Markets
The AI Power Trade Broke: Vistra Fell 15%, Solar Rose
Vistra fell 15.4% and GE Vernova 11.5% on November 4 as investors priced slower AI data-centre growth in Texas, while First Solar and Enphase rose more than 8%.
The companies that sell electricity to AI data centres had one of their worst days of the year on Wednesday, November 4. Vistra, among the power producers most exposed to data-centre projects in Texas, fell 15.4%, Constellation Energy 9.2% and GE Vernova, which makes the gas turbines many new data centres rely on, 11.5%, Reuters reported. The bitcoin-miners-turned-AI-hosts fell too: Core Scientific lost 11.6% and Iren 12.5%.
The logic ran straight from the ballot box. Democrats who had campaigned on pausing data-centre development won the governorships of Texas and Georgia, and Texas alone accounts for about a quarter of the US data-centre capacity due online by 2030. Much of the rally in power stocks since 2024 has rested on forecasts of electricity demand from those projects, so a risk to the projects is a risk to the forecasts.
Clean energy moved the other way. First Solar rose 8.4%, Enphase Energy 8.8%, Sunrun 6.9% and NextEra Energy 4.6%, and in Europe Vestas, Orsted and EDP Renewables also gained, on bets that a Democratic Congress will support the sector and resist rollbacks of emissions rules. "The more that oil and gas prices rise, the bigger the economic incentive to roll out clean energy," said Paul Jackson, global market strategist for EMEA at Invesco.
The two moves are not as contradictory as they look. Data centres still need power wherever they are built, and a slower approval process changes who supplies it and where rather than whether. Morgan Stanley flagged the risk of delays to a 10-gigawatt Nvidia-linked project in Ohio, but HSBC expects more oversight rather than outright bans. The biggest losers were the stocks whose valuations assumed the fastest build-out in the most permissive state.
A one-day repricing is not yet a trend. The test will come in the power companies' own guidance and in utilities' filings for new large-load connections, which show how many data-centre projects are still queuing for grid capacity. If those queues hold, Wednesday will look like a reset of expectations; if projects start to move out of Texas, the winners of the power trade could change.
Sources: Reuters (via Yahoo Finance) — AI data-center stocks slide, renewables rally after Democratic US midterm sweep (Nov 4, 2026); Reuters (via Yahoo Finance) — Analysis: Trump's midterm drubbing demonstrates the power of data center opponents (Nov 4, 2026)