Key Takeaways
- Shares of GEV plummeted 8.6% Monday, closing at $874.66, significantly lagging the S&P 500’s modest 0.5% decline
- Leading AI executives including Anthropic’s Dario Amodei urged a pause in rapid AI advancement
- Gordon Johnson of GLJ Research launched coverage with a Sell recommendation and $470 target, the lowest on the Street
- Johnson’s Ebitda projection for 2027 of $7.4B falls drastically short of the $9.5B FactSet consensus figure
- Industry counterparts Eaton and Vertiv experienced similar declines of approximately 7.6%
Shares of GE Vernova experienced a sharp selloff on Monday, September 14, plunging 8.6% to finish at $874.66. This steep decline stood in stark contrast to the broader market’s modest pullback, with the S&P 500 sliding just 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite dipping 0.6%.
The stock faced a perfect storm: widespread anxiety over artificial intelligence development combined with a devastating new analyst report predicting the shares could plummet by half.
The AI anxiety originated from a comprehensive essay penned by Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic. In his piece, Amodei contended that artificial intelligence systems are evolving at a pace that outstrips researchers’ ability to ensure safety. He advocated for deliberately decelerating cutting-edge AI research and suggested placing independent safety auditors within AI companies.
Sam Altman of OpenAI, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, and Demis Hassabis from Google DeepMind each expressed varying degrees of support for these proposals.
This development carries significant implications for GEV, whose power generation equipment portfolio depends heavily on data center expansion driven by AI advancement. Any deceleration in AI progress would correspondingly reduce demand for the electrical infrastructure solutions that GE Vernova manufactures.
Prior to Monday’s decline, GEV shares had surged 46% year-to-date in 2026 and had skyrocketed an impressive 324% over the preceding two years.
Bearish Analyst Call Compounds Losses
Compounding the broader industry headwinds, Gordon Johnson from GLJ Research initiated coverage on GE Vernova with a Sell designation and established a $470 price objective. This target represents approximately a 50% haircut from Monday’s trading levels and sits more than $300 beneath the next-lowest analyst projection on the Street.
Johnson’s primary thesis centers on excessive valuation. GEV currently commands approximately 26 times his projected 2027 Ebitda multiple. By comparison, the broader S&P 500 trades near 13 times. His valuation framework assigns the company a 14x multiple based on his proprietary Ebitda forecast.
Additionally, Johnson anticipates earnings disappointments ahead, partially attributable to power generation equipment scheduled for 2027 delivery being sold under contracts negotiated during periods of lower pricing. His Ebitda forecast of $7.4 billion for 2027 represents a substantial gap compared to the FactSet analyst consensus of $9.5 billion.
Johnson’s perspective stands as a dramatic departure from Wall Street consensus. Approximately 80% of analysts maintaining coverage on GEV assign Buy ratings, well above the S&P 500 average Buy rating ratio of 55% to 60%. The consensus price target among analysts hovers around $1,240.
Broad-Based Industry Weakness
The selloff extended beyond GEV alone. Eaton and Vertiv, fellow providers of electrical infrastructure equipment supporting AI data center buildouts, each suffered comparable losses of roughly 7.6% during Monday’s session.
This downdraft arrived mere days following Jefferies analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith’s Friday upgrade of his GEV price objective to $1,185 from $1,155. His optimistic stance highlighted accelerating service revenue streams generated by an expanding fleet of installed power generation equipment, which had propelled the stock up 3.6% that session.
Despite Monday’s sharp retreat, the consensus analyst price target for GE Vernova continues to rest around $1,240, substantially above both the current trading price and Johnson’s bearish $470 projection.
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