저자: CouchInvestor · 외국인
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빌리어네어 투자자 David Tepper의 Appaloosa 포트폴리오에서 신규 편입된 Vistra(VST)를 분석. 최근 1년간 주가 약 300% 상승, 원전·AI 전력 수요 수혜 논리 제시. 분기 실적·가이던스(2026년 조정 EBITDA 60억달러 이상 중간값), 잉여현금흐름 증가, 자사주 매입 등을 근거로 긍정적 평가. 역DCF 기준 향후 10년 FCF 성장률 6.7% 내재, 합리적이라 판단. 단 일부 원전 관련주는 미래 성장이 선반영됐다고 언급.
다듬은 글
Billionaire investor David Tepper of Appaloosa Management bought a new stock in Q3. He actually bought a couple, but I want to cover one specific pick in this video, because it is the best-performing stock in the S&P 500. It's been a battle: first it was Nvidia, then Palantir, then, well, actually Nvidia again, then Vistra, and now Vistra yet again, as you can see here.
Appaloosa did buy this last quarter, a completely new position. You might say a new position shouldn't be that big, but it's already the 12th largest position in the portfolio. He also seemed extremely bullish on China. Numbers one and two are Alibaba and PDD, which together make up 26% of the portfolio. Then you've got Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Google/Alphabet, and another Chinese company, JD, where he added about 6.5 million shares. By the way, last quarter he did reduce Alibaba a little. Remember, this is the guy who said "buy everything." Clearly he didn't buy everything; he even sold some. But Vistra is a new position and it's already in the top 15.
If you don't know what Vistra is, you've come to the right place. Let's discuss the company, why it has gone up so much this year, and why it might still be a pretty good company to have in your portfolio today. All the AI expectations are going to continue for quite a long time, and that will require a lot of energy. Not just fossil fuels, but nuclear as well, and renewables too. That's where Vistra comes in.
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Vistra Corp has a market cap of about $51.75 billion. Year to date it's up close to 300%. It also pays a small dividend, with a dividend yield of 0.58%, and its forward P/E sits at 19.8x. You've seen much higher numbers for big tech, and 19.8x forward compared to 29.3x trailing is not alarming on its face. But we have to dig deeper: EV/sales is 3.8x and EV/EBITDA is 12.6x.
Now let's look at what analysts expect. For fiscal 2024 they expect sales growth of around 15.5% year over year, with EPS growing much faster, around 94%. For fiscal 2025, sales growth of about 14% and EPS growth of 44.2%. For fiscal 2026, sales growth decelerates to about 6.1% year over year, while EPS growth is closer to 12%.
This company pays a dividend and now has a shareholder yield of 91%, made up of the 0.57% dividend yield, a buyback yield (they've been buying back quite a lot of shares), and a small negative from debt paydown. Yes, the company holds quite a lot of debt, but it shouldn't be much of an issue. On dividends, if you had bought this stock at the end of 2019 you'd be getting 13 cents; now you get 22 cents. That's a solid increase, with annualized growth over the last three years closer to 14%. Over the last 2.8 years, the share count has been reduced by close to 30%.
Comparing pricing metrics to the five-year mean, it's clearly more expensive now than before. But bear in mind they weren't growing as fast then as they are now. They're also acquiring some companies here and there, which helps revenue growth but hit cash flow this quarter, so you have to take that into account. They gave guidance for next year and even for 2026, and it looks like this will be a good, cash-generating company. EV/EBITDA, price to sales, and price to free cash flow are all much higher than their five-year means.
Vistra operates a diverse fleet of power plants, including natural gas, nuclear, coal, and solar facilities. It sells electricity to residential, commercial, and industrial customers under various brand names, and it is investing heavily in battery storage to complement its generation portfolio.
This year has been the year of nuclear stocks. Oklo and Constellation Energy have gone up and up, for a couple of reasons: big tech companies have started announcing partnerships and agreements. Google signed an agreement with Kairos Power to purchase nuclear energy from multiple small modular reactors (SMRs), aiming to bring up to 500 megawatts of carbon-free power to the US grid, with the first reactor due online by 2030 and more deployments through 2035. This is what I've been saying for a long time: nuclear stocks have gone up a lot in anticipation of a major transition toward SMRs and nuclear energy. But it's going to take a very long time for these things to get approved, built out, and for older plants to be revived. It's not "they have an agreement and next year we're up and running." So yes, the stocks have gone up. Is it worth chasing? Some, like Vistra, are already making money, but many others are priced on 2030 and 2035 goals. I'll make a separate video on Oklo and some others, but a lot of future growth is already baked into those stocks.
AWS announced participation in $500 million of Series C-1 financing for advanced reactor developer X-energy, and partnered with Energy Northwest to build a four-unit, 320-megawatt plant in Washington, and with Dominion Energy to explore advanced reactor development at North Anna in Virginia. Microsoft signed a 20-year agreement with Constellation Energy to purchase power and restart the Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. So the big players are already making moves.
Back to Vistra: what has happened and what's expected. Revenue growth we've already seen. Look at free cash flow: it's expected to be $2.572 billion in 2024, $3.4 billion in 2025, and $3.7 billion in 2026. It's a free-cash-flow-generating company, and I expect that to continue. Free cash flow margin and gross profit margin came down, but that's because of the acquisitions, which hit reported free cash flow. Adjusted free cash flow doesn't show that negative impact.
Last quarter they delivered $1.44 billion in adjusted EBITDA, solid results despite a milder Texas summer versus 2023. They also raised the 2024 adjusted EBITDA guidance to $5 to $5.2 billion. For adjusted free cash flow before growth, which is the first time I'm seeing this metric, guidance is $2.65 to $2.85 billion. For 2025 they're initiating $5.5 to $6.1 billion of adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow before growth of $3.3 to $3.6 billion. For 2026, the adjusted EBITDA midpoint opportunity is over $6 billion. In Q3 they allocated $3.5 billion of capital to equity repurchases, about $3.1 billion toward the Vistra Vision minority interest acquisition and around $400 million in open-market buybacks. They also run a comprehensive hedging program: 100% hedged for the rest of 2024, about 96% for 2025, and 64% for 2026. If they stay on track for over $6 billion of adjusted EBITDA in 2026, that's quite bullish, and it's probably worth paying a small premium today.
I ran a quick reverse DCF using trailing-twelve-month free cash flow. We know 2024 will be higher than that, but the trailing figure is the right base for this calculation. With the discount rate and terminal growth rate I used, the implied growth rate needed to justify today's price is 6.7%. In other words, they need to grow free cash flow about 6.7% a year over the next 10 years. That's justifiable, and could even be a bit higher, but you want a margin of safety. The reverse DCF also includes 2% dilution. The market is expecting free cash flow to reach $3.7 billion in 2026, and that figure is only expected around year N or so, so 6.7% seems quite reasonable to me.
On the charts, the stock is back at all-time highs and a bit overbought. It was overbought for a very long time before, from November 2023 to June 2024. I'll keep repeating this because not everybody watches the same videos: you can stay overbought for a long period and watch your stock go from $34 down to $15 or $16. These things happen. Now it's back at all-time highs after a nice rebound over the last two weeks from the 50-day moving average. It dipped slightly below it and bounced quite nicely above.
All in all, I'd call it a solid buy. For Appaloosa's portfolio it makes sense to own it. I don't know exactly when he bought, since 13F data is outdated and we only see last quarter's numbers. He may have bought more in the last few weeks, or already sold, and we don't know. But when you buy, you want good companies to hold for a long time, and I think Vistra is in an amazing position to benefit from everything happening with AI, and from the move toward renewables and nuclear. There's a reason this stock is up 300% year to date. All in all, a very good company. I'll put it on my watch list and maybe cover it more. If you own it, let me know in the comments, like and subscribe, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye-bye.
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