Is Vistra Stock Engineered To Make You Money

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Vistra (VST) stock lost 26.8% over the past year, against a 15.0% gain for the S&P 500. The power company continued to buy back its shares all the same. Its diluted share count is 10% lower than three years ago, leaving each remaining share with a larger piece of Vistra's profit. So how much has that shrinking share count done for each Vistra share?

Vistra Earns More Per Share Than Three Years Ago

Over the three years to June 2026, Vistra's earnings per share grew 17.4% a year, against 11.6% a year for its net income. Most of the difference comes from the smaller share count. With the profit split among fewer shares, each share's portion grows faster than the profit itself.

The climb was not smooth. Earnings per share fell sharply in the twelve months to June 2024 before recovering. In the latest twelve months, net income fell 7.1% and earnings per share fell 5.6%. Fewer shares meant a smaller per-share decline, but it was still a fall.

Vistra is still buying. Net of stock pay to employees, its buybacks over the last twelve months came to 2.1% of its market value. Management said on the August 7, 2026 call that Vistra has retired about 171 million shares since November 2021. The company paid about $38 a share on average, against a close of $146.66 on October 27, 2026.

What Pays For Vistra's Buyback?

Over the twelve months to June 2026, Vistra paid for its buyback and dividend out of the cash its business produced. Free cash flow covered both 1.4 times. That cash comes from two businesses, power generation and retail. On the August 7 call, management said its generation business delivered about $994 million of adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter, against about $593 million a year earlier, and its retail business about $773 million.

Vistra kept 19.4% of its revenue as operating income over the last twelve months, against 18.5% for the S&P 500. Capital spending was 56% of its cash from operations over the same period. The buyback is paid from what is left after that spending, not from cash on hand.

What Could Stop Vistra's Buyback?

Debt is the main risk to Vistra's buyback. At the end of June 2026, Vistra's debt exceeded its cash by $19.5 billion, or about 3.0 times its EBITDA over the previous twelve months. Its operating income covered interest expense 3.9 times over the same period. Over the three years in which the share count fell, total debt rose from $12.3 billion to $19.9 billion. Management said Vistra has investment-grade credit ratings from two of the major agencies.

The live worry for holders is power prices in Texas. Management said that prices in the Texas market have softened, and that 2027 adjusted EBITDA was trending toward the lower end of its $7.4 billion to $7.8 billion range. That range leaves out the pending Cogentrix acquisition and the Meta power deal. With softer prices there, Vistra could have less cash for the buyback. Management also forecast more than $10 billion of available cash across 2026 and 2027 combined, and has set aside about $3 billion of it for shareholders through buybacks and dividends.

So far the buyback works per share. Earnings per share grew faster than net income over three years, and the business's own cash paid for the buyback in the latest twelve months. Vistra's debt could undo it: total debt rose as the share count fell. Vistra's free cash flow against what it hands back to shareholders is the number to watch when the company reports third-quarter results, expected in November 2026.

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