BE
The vibe check from TD Cowen
Bloom Energy caught a Monday downgrade-to-the-mood, even if not the rating itself. TD Cowen kept a Hold on the stock and left its $235 price target in place, but the note was basically a giant red flag waving over two of Bloom’s biggest data-center projects.
The market didn’t need much convincing. BE shares were down about 5.5% as investors digested the idea that some of the company’s most important future installs may be moving slower than a snail in a headwind.
The big hang-up: projects that keep slipping
The analyst pointed to Oracle’s 2.45 GW fully islanded buildout, which still doesn’t have an approved air permit and is also tangled up in a natural-gas pipeline dispute with federal regulators. That’s not exactly the kind of schedule you want if you’re counting on a clean rollout.
Then there’s AEP’s project near Cheyenne, Wyoming, which has apparently slipped by two years in less than 90 days. That kind of delay doesn’t just mess with the calendar — it can push out revenue, backlog conversion, and those rosy future forecasts everyone loves to model.
Why investors care
Bloom’s stock story has been all about AI data-center power demand, and that theme is still alive. But the note reminds you that big infrastructure stories can get bogged down in permits, pipelines, and plain old timing.
TD Cowen also flagged the long-running scandium issue, since the material is used in Bloom’s fuel cells. With China requiring export licenses for scandium, the supply chain question has turned into one of those “how bad is this really?” debates that bulls and bears can argue about until the cows come home.
Still some green shoots
To be fair, it wasn’t all gloom. TD Cowen pointed to a June FERC ruling that could make utilities more open to on-site power generation like fuel cells. The analyst also mentioned potential order wins in Texas and Spain, so Bloom isn’t exactly running on fumes.
Big picture: Bloom Energy is still riding the AI power wave, but Monday’s note says the road ahead may be bumpier — and a lot more bureaucratic — than investors hoped.