Bloom Energy shares climb nearly 9% on Barclays upgrade and California project plan

what happened

Bloom Energy shares gained 8.9% in Tuesday trading, Seeking Alpha reported. Barclays moved the stock to Overweight from Equal Weight and set a $289 price target. The same day, the company disclosed a potential large-scale collaboration with California Resources Corp. to assess building at least 1 GW of fuel cell capacity combined with carbon capture.

Barclays noted that customer deposits climbed from $78M at the end of 2025 to $661M in the third quarter of 2026, with roughly $300M added in Q3 alone. Some deposits were already recognized as revenue on shipped units, so the net change understates gross inflows. Analyst Christine Cho estimated that, if customers typically pay about 10% upfront, the increase could imply at least $3B of underlying contract value.

Cho wrote that the deposit growth, faster manufacturing expansion and new supplier commitments suggest management is more confident in its demand outlook than Barclays had assumed.

why it matters

For a fast-growing company, customer prepayments are an early signal of incoming orders, so rising deposits draw attention to future revenue. The California Resources deal is still at the evaluation stage, and its effect on financial results is unclear. Stocks of this kind often react strongly to changes in analyst ratings.

market impact

Bloom Energy shares: the upgrade and rising customer deposits support the stock

• ▲Bloom Energy shares pressure up — analyst upgrade and rising customer deposits signal stronger demand

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