New York, February 12, 2026, 14:21 ET — Regular session
Bloom Energy Corporation shares were down 9.2% at $141.21 at 2:05 p.m. ET on Thursday, giving back an early lift and extending the stock’s recent whipsaw. The fuel-cell maker opened at $160 and has traded between $160.20 and $136.60, with volume topping 10 million shares.
The slide tracked a renewed pullback in U.S. stocks, led by software and other technology names as investors pressed for evidence that heavy spending on artificial intelligence will show up in earnings. “We see this as a ‘prove it’ year for AI,” Jack Herr, primary investment analyst at GuideStone Funds, said. Reuters
Bloom has become a high-beta way to play the race to power AI data centers. In a Feb. 5 earnings release, the San Jose, California-based company reported 2025 revenue of $2.02 billion and said current product backlog was about $6 billion; it forecast 2026 revenue of $3.1 billion to $3.3 billion and non-GAAP EPS — a profit metric that excludes certain items such as stock compensation — of $1.33 to $1.48. CEO KR Sridhar said “bring-your-own-power has shifted from a slogan to a business necessity for AI hyperscalers.” SEC
The broader fuel-cell group also fell. Plug Power was down about 4.6%, FuelCell Energy slipped about 5.2% and Ballard Power eased about 3.2%.
On the day, Wall Street’s main indexes were down more than 1% and Treasury yields eased as traders waited for Friday’s U.S. consumer price index report. Jay Hatfield, CEO and CIO of Infrastructure Capital Advisors, said the bull case for near-term Fed cuts had been “challenged” after strong jobs data. Reuters
AI has started to look less like a straight-line trade and more like a stock-picker’s trap, with single-name headlines driving sharp moves across sectors, Reuters reported. “You’ve clearly seen that breakdown in terms of the monolithic AI trade,” said Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions. Reuters
Bloom sits in that crossfire. The company is tied to the data-center buildout story, but the shares have traded more like a momentum gauge than a slow-and-steady industrial name.
But the next macro jolt could still reset the tape. A hotter CPI print, a jump in yields, or any cooling in data-center orders would test how much of Bloom’s backlog converts into revenue on schedule and at the margins investors now expect.
For now, traders are circling Friday’s CPI report as the next near-term catalyst for rates and risk appetite. Julia Hermann, global market strategist at New York Life Investments, said the market is looking for a “sweet spot” where hiring shows resilience without derailing expectations for future Fed easing. Reuters
