GE Vernova Falls as Much as 9.8% After SoftBank's $3.7B Power-Equipment Charge, Closes Down 3.9% on $197B Backlog

GEV dropped as much as 9.8% as regular trading opened on November 10 after SoftBank disclosed a $3.7 billion charge tied to changes in its equipment procurement strategy for U.S. AI data centers. SoftBank's results break the charge into ¥457.0 billion of non-refundable advance payments and ¥140.2 billion of contract changes and settlements, according to MLQ.ai, and its SB Energy unit had reserved turbines, including from GE Vernova, for a 9.2-gigawatt gas plant in Ohio. SoftBank told CNBC the Ohio project "is on track, but the contract is being revised," and called Elon Musk's earlier claim that it was defaulting on turbine orders "simply not correct at all."

The selling eased through the day: GE Vernova closed down 3.90% at $797.04, after rising 7.1% the previous session. The company told CNBC the announcement has no financial impact on its slot sales and that it expects all slots through 2030 to be mostly sold by the end of 2026. Its order book remains the core of the bull case: backlog reached a record $197 billion at the end of the third quarter, and the midpoint of 2026 revenue guidance is $47 billion. The Motley Fool estimates about $150 billion of that backlog converts to revenue by the third quarter of 2031.

The SoftBank news hit a group that was already under pressure. GE Vernova, VRT and BE had lost between 10% and 24% over the prior week, a slide that began with mid-October inflation data and Bloom's results rather than SoftBank; on November 10 itself, Bloom and Vertiv each fell about 3%, per TIKR data cited by MLQ.ai. The open question for AI power stocks is whether other data center developers revise equipment orders, or whether SoftBank's change stays a one-customer contract revision as both companies describe it.