The nuclear-powered AI trade is just on fire

Know what the market loves better than AI? Nuclear-powered AI.

So-called merchant power providers — power producers who create energy and sell it at wholesale market prices at rather than at regulated utility rates — are having a heck of a year in the stock market.

Faring especially well are such power-providers with nuclear assets that appear well positioned to cut deals with the giant tech firms who are rushing to building out power-hungry data centers. We’ve previously spotlighted the run-up in share prices of Constellation Energy and NRG.

But check out the surge in Vistra Corp. It’s now the second biggest riser in the S&P 500 this year, with its gain of roughly 150% putting it right behind market darling SuperMicro Computer.

It got a sharp boost this month even after missing the bottomline on quarterly earnings, as it talked about about the emerging opportunity related to deals that would connect some of its newly purchased nuclear power plants with demand emanating from the AI frenzy.

“We actually have partners, potential partners coming to us directly,” Vistra CEO James A. Burke told analysts. “And speed is really very important to them.”