This is a special post for quick takes by Lao Mein. Only they can create top-level comments. Comments here also appear on the Quick Takes page and All Posts page.
The announcement of Stargate caused a significant increase in the stock price of GE-Vernona, albeit at a delay. This is exactly what we would expect to see if the markets expect a significant buildout of US natural gas electrical capacity, which is needed for a large datacenter expansion. I once again regret not buying GE-Vernona calls (the year is 2026. OpenAI announces AGI. GE Vernova is at 20,000. I once again regret not buying calls).
This goes against my initial take that Stargate was a desperate attempt by Altman to not get gutted by Musk - he offers a grandiose economic project to Trump to prove his value, mostly to buy time for the for-profit conversion of OpenAI to go through. The markets seem to think it's real-ish.
Hm, that's not how it looks like to me? Look at the 6-months plot:
The latest growth spurt started January 14th, well before the Stargate news went public, and this seems like just its straight-line continuation. The graph past the Stargate announcement doesn't look "special" at all. Arguably, we can interpret it as Stargate being part of the reference class of events that are currently driving GE Vernova up – not an outside-context event as such, but still relevant...
Except for the fact that the market indeed did not respond to Stargate immediately. Which ... (read more)