And seven others.
Catching on to what their Dow Jones brethren at Barron's have been saying for the last year or so.
From MarketWatch, October 24:
These companies control the transformers, cables and systems that power AI.
Wall Street thinks the AI bottleneck is semiconductors. Wall Street also thought mortgage-backed securities were a good idea.
The real bottleneck in the AI buildout is electricity. You can’t run data centers on a power grid that’s been held together with duct tape since the Eisenhower administration without the lights going out at inconvenient moments — like when you’re training AI models or pitching your AI strategy to Wall Street.
The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the U.S. electrical grid a D+ grade. These are professionals who grade collapsing bridges. Getting a D+ from these people is like getting a note from your oncologist that says “probably fine.”
Big Tech figured this out. They’re spending $400 billion building their own power plants because waiting for the grid is like waiting for the DMV to become efficient. When tech companies start acting like utilities, something has gone catastrophically wrong.
All of which is catastrophically profitable for 10 companies that can actually deliver electrons.
China power
Look at China: It maintains an 80% to 100% electricity reserve margin. The U.S. runs at 15%. China could lose 80% of its grid and still keep the lights on. America loses 15%, and we’re cooking squirrels over trash fires while explaining to our grandchildren what “streaming” was.China’s grid capacity now exceeds the U.S., EU, and India combined. Chinese manufacturers sell transformers 20% to 40% cheaper with 48-week lead times, versus three-year waits from U.S. manufacturers. China can deploy data centers without worrying whether the lights work. America can’t.
China built 42 ultrahigh-voltage transmission lines while America built zero. ZERO. This is what losing looks like....
....MUCH MORE
Quanta is up $16.50 (+3.86%) at $443.86
Prysmian is up 1.14 euros (1.29%) at €89.76
GE Vernova is up $12.13 (+2.04%) at $607.28, quite a run from October 22's "GE Vernova Earnings Call Transcript Q3 FY2025, October 22, 2024 (GEV)" which wrapped the earlier:
GE Vernova Is DOWN $52.25, The Gap On The Chart Has Finally Been Filled (GEV)
$533.08 last, down $52.25 (-8.93%)
We didn't quite catch the low for the day, $532.72, but got close. From TradingView:
