Fueling Wall Street's Bullish Narrative: GE Vernova (GEV.US) Order Backlog May Exceed $200 Billion Early Next Year, CEO Says Demand is "Strong and Durable"

According to Golden Ten Data APP, on Wednesday, shares of power equipment giant GE Vernova (GEV.US) rebounded sharply after the company's CEO, Scott Strazik, made a statement at the Morgan Stanley Laguna Conference: the company's order backlog is expected to surpass $200 billion in early 2027, earlier than Wall Street previously anticipated.

This statement came at just the right time for investors unsettled by recent AI-driven trading pullbacks. Strazik stated that by the end of the second quarter, GE Vernova's order backlog had already reached $176 billion. Based on the strong orders expected in the third quarter, the company is likely to reach $200 billion "very early in 2027."

"If we talk about end markets, I would tell everyone that we continue to see very strong and sustained demand," Strazik said.

He also described this goal as a "very humble milestone" and cited the broader trend of rising electricity consumption. "The world needs much more energy, and increasingly more of that energy will come from electricity. GE Vernova is in a very advantageous position to serve this field," he added.

Bulls were further encouraged by the fact that Strazik did not just want to talk about AI data centers. He looked ahead to 2030–2040, saying that could be an “even better decade” than 2020–2030. Part of the order backlog growth momentum comes from the continued increase in high-margin service revenue; the company is also enhancing capacity through factory automation and robotics technology.

The financial disclosure schedule also provides a timetable for the market: Strazik said that at the January earnings call next year, GE Vernova will provide a 2027 financial outlook, as well as disclose 2026 equipment profit margin and order backlog data. At the next Capital Markets Day, the company will set a 2030 financial outlook, and devote a significant amount of time to explaining why it is so confident about 2030–2040.

This message echoes the narrative of bullish analysts such as Bernstein. Sunaina Ocalan of Bernstein on Tuesday reiterated a “Buy” rating on GE Vernova, with a price target of $1,298, saying the company is still “wired to win.” Her key point: GE Vernova's story "is not all about data centers." In the first half of 2026, data center orders reached $5 billion, accounting for about 38% of electrification orders; the remaining 62% were driven by utilities.

Ocalan believes utility spending should continue to grow, supported by investments in grid reliability and resilience. She points out that a slowdown in data center demand may ease power generation bottlenecks, but will do little to resolve existing grid constraints. In other words, a cooling-off in AI construction does not mean the upgrading and strengthening of the aging grid will stop.

But the bears’ view is also sharp. The immediate trigger for GE Vernova’s sell-off on Monday was GLJ Research downgrading the stock to “Sell” and giving it a $470 price target, the lowest on Wall Street. GLJ analyst Gordon Johnson bluntly stated in his report that GE Vernova is "a cyclical gas turbine manufacturer priced as a long-term compounder growth stock." He believes there is a fundamental mismatch in how the market values this company. Johnson noted the stock's forward EV/EBITDA multiple is 38.9 times, nearly four times that of Micron Technology (MU.US), even though Micron's earnings also depend on industry supply and demand dynamics beyond its control.