Can Vistra Stock Jump 40%

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Vistra (VST) stock has lost 30.2% over the past year, while the S&P 500 returned 11.3%. The shares closed at $138.37 on October 30, 2026. A 40% climb depends largely on what the company earns in 2027, and such a rise would still leave the stock below its $216.66 close of September 22, 2025, which is the highest of the past three years. Vistra has risen at least 40% within a calendar year in six of the last nine years. At 21.0 times earnings, against 22.6 for the median S&P 500 company, what are you buying?

You Get Cash Flow Growing Faster Than Revenue

You are buying a power producer and electricity retailer priced lower on its cash flow than the market. Over the four quarters ended June 30, 2026, Vistra's revenue rose 3.8%, while its cash from operations rose 21% from a year earlier. Based on that cash flow, the stock trades at 9.1 times, against 15.2 for the S&P 500 as a whole. Its largest segment is Retail, where revenue rose 12.1% to $14.3 billion in fiscal 2025.

Vistra's net income has not kept pace, falling to $2.22 billion over those four quarters from $2.39 billion a year earlier. Operating income, by contrast, edged up to $3.72 billion from $3.65 billion. The company also booked a paper loss: second-quarter net income of $305 million included a $472 million unrealized loss on hedges expected to settle in future years, Vistra said in August.

Vistra's Revenue Growth Has Swung Widely Over Three Years

Vistra's latest revenue growth sits below its own average of 6.7% across the three twelve-month periods ended each June from 2024 to 2026. That average covers wide swings, with revenue falling 15.4% in the twelve months to June 2024 and then rising 31.6% in the twelve months to June 2025. In the latest quarter, fiscal Q2 2026, revenue fell 5.5% from a year earlier.

On its August 7 call, management named Texas as the weak spot. Power prices there had softened, management said, and forward prices for 2027 were meaningfully lower than in October 2025. Vistra's Texas segment was already lagging in fiscal 2025, when its revenue slipped 0.76% while revenue in the East segment grew 9.1%. Weakness in Texas is the risk that comes with owning Vistra now.

What Vistra Is Adding Beyond Its 2027 Outlook

Vistra is adding power plants and contracts that its 2027 outlook leaves out. In August, management kept its 2027 range for adjusted EBITDA, a profit measure before interest, taxes and depreciation, at $7.4 billion to $7.8 billion. Management also said 2027 was trending toward the lower end of that range, because higher prices in other markets and its hedging do not fully offset the weaker Texas prices.

That range excludes Cogentrix Energy, 10 natural gas plants with about 5,500 megawatts of capacity that Vistra finished buying on October 30, 2026. It also excludes power purchase agreements with Meta for its nuclear plants. Absent other impacts such as further moves in power prices, management said the two deals could add roughly $700 million to the 2027 midpoint.

A buyer at today's price is betting less on a steady business being mispriced than on these deals lifting Vistra's 2027 adjusted EBITDA despite weaker Texas prices. The number to watch is Vistra's updated guidance for 2027 adjusted EBITDA, which management plans to give with its third-quarter results, expected in November 2026.

How To Act On VST?

Not necessarily on Vistra alone, if your goal is long-term wealth. Wealth is built by owning the companies that keep outperforming, the leaders of their industries, wherever they are. Vistra is one. Over the five years to October 2026, its stock rose 670%, ahead of all 23 other companies in Electric Utilities, where the typical company rose 50%.

Finding companies like these takes comparison across industries and sectors, and that is what the Trefis High Quality (HQ) Portfolio does. It holds 30 quality companies in equal weight and, since its inception in September 2020, has returned more than 105%, ahead of a benchmark that combines the S&P 500, S&P Mid-cap and Russell 2000. See how we find the leaders.

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