Bloom Energy (BE -1.58%) investors have had a hard couple of weeks. The fuel cell maker’s shares finished Oct. 20 at around $223, off about 21% from where they closed on Oct. 9. This puts the stock around 36% below its record, a $345.85 close on June 22.
Yet shares have still climbed around 156% this year, as artificial intelligence (AI) data centers have turned to Bloom’s fuel cells for on-site power. And the company’s third-quarter report comes out after the market closes on Thursday, Oct. 22.
Is it worth buying the stock with that report a day away? I’d say Thursday’s most important number isn’t the quarter’s revenue. It’s whatever management says about its forecast for the full year.
Image source: Getty Images.
Can Bloom raise its forecast again?
Bloom has raised its 2026 outlook at both of its past two reports. In February, management called for revenue of $3.1 billion to $3.3 billion.
It boosted that range to $3.4 billion to $3.8 billion in April. Then in July, Bloom posted second-quarter revenue of $1.07 billion, up 166% year over year and a pickup from the first quarter’s 130% rate. It raised the range again, to $3.9 billion to $4.2 billion.
But the latest forecast doesn’t ask much of the second half. Bloom pulled in around $1.82 billion of revenue in the first half of the year, leaving $2.08 billion to $2.38 billion for the last two quarters. That comes to around $1.04 billion to $1.19 billion a quarter — a range that starts a bit under the second quarter’s total.
Profits look similar. Management sees non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings of $2.55 to $2.85 a share for 2026. Bloom’s adjusted earnings were $0.44 a share in the first quarter, then $0.78 in the second, up from just $0.10 a year before. That leaves around $0.67 to $0.82 a quarter for the rest of 2026.
In other words, the forecast assumes Bloom’s quarterly profits roughly stay where the second quarter left them.
And Bloom’s sales haven’t moved in a straight line. Revenue slipped from $778 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 to $751 million in 2026’s first quarter, then jumped 42% in the second quarter compared with the first. Big projects can land unevenly, so any one quarter might swing more than the full-year trend.
Orders and margins
What might drive the forecast up is new business. Bloom’s product backlog (the value of signed orders for its fuel cell systems not yet delivered) more than doubled during 2025, to around $6 billion at year-end.
And customer deposits climbed $282.4 million in the first half of 2026. Bloom said this was mostly from new deposits on recently signed agreements and payments on ongoing projects, which suggests orders kept coming after year-end.
Margins also matter. Bloom’s adjusted gross margin was 34.3% in the second quarter, versus 28.2% in the year-ago quarter, helped by a $37.4 million recovery of tariffs it had already paid.
Management’s goal of around 34% for the full year probably needs the second half to be above the first half’s roughly 33%.
The price still assumes more raises
At around $223, the stock costs about 82 times this year’s expected earnings, using the middle of management’s adjusted forecast, $2.70 a share. It fetched almost 170 times expected earnings at the June record, based on the forecast Bloom had then.
Bloom’s profit outlook has risen while the stock has dropped. Still, 82 times earnings is a steep price for a forecast that, as it stands, calls for roughly flat quarterly profits through the end of the year. Even on next year’s expected earnings, the stock trades near 45 times earnings.
BE – Bloom Energy
$222.65-$3.57 (-1.58%)
NYSE · As of 4:00 PM ET 10/20/26
In a piece last week, with the stock near $239, I said that the price needed to fall before I’d buy. Shares are around 7% lower now, which takes the stock from almost 89 times this year’s expected earnings to about 82 times earnings.
I don’t think that changes much for a stock that has moved 10% or more in one day on 11 trading days since the start of June.
Sure, a third raise on Thursday may push shares sharply higher. But at this valuation, much of that hope already seems priced in.
If the new forecast puts second-half revenue clearly over the second quarter’s $1.07 billion, I’d take another look. Until then, I’d rather see the report than pay this price before it.
Source: www.fool.com — article syndicated from the publisher’s feed; all rights remain with the original publisher.
