NextEra Energy: I Sold It, I Want It Back, And This Is Not The Price

A week ago I published a refresh of the 2026 Top 10 AI Power and Utilities list I put out last December, and in it I disclosed something I did not especially enjoy writing down. I no longer own NextEra Energy (NEE), and I said plainly that I intended to buy it back at the published zone. That is still where I stand today. I am out, and I want back in. The question is not whether NextEra is a good company, because it is one of the two or three best operating franchises in American utilities and I will make that case in a moment. The question is why a stock trading roughly 10% below its 52-week high, sitting a hair below a defensible fair value, is still not somewhere I am willing to put money on Friday morning. What you are actually buying NextEra is two businesses wearing one ticker, and the distinction matters more than most write-ups admit. Florida Power & Light is the regulated foundation, serving roughly six million customer accounts covering about twelve million people, and producing the clear majority of consolidated earnings. Its economics are the classic regulated formula: put approved capital into the ground, earn an allowed return on it, recover costs through rates. In the first quarter, FPL's adjusted earnings per share moved from $0.64 to $0.70, while regulatory capital employed grew from $71.4 billion to $77.7 billion, roughly 8.8%. NextEra Energy Resources is the development arm, and it is the reason this stock has ever traded at a premium to Duke Energy (DUK) or Southern Company (SO). It builds and operates wind, solar, storage, nuclear and gas infrastructure, mostly under long-term contract. It contributed $0.50 in the first quarter against $0.44 a year earlier, and it added a record 4.0 gigawatts to a backlog that now sits near 33 gigawatts. Put those together and you get a company guiding to at least 8% adjusted earnings growth through 2032, with an aspiration to hold that pace through 2035. Consolidated first-quarter adjusted EPS came in at $1.09 against $0.99, up 10.1%, and management continues to point at the upper end of its $3.92 to $4.02 range for the full year. Makes sense so far, right? Above-sector growth, a regulated anchor, a development pipeline nobody can replicate at scale. That is the bull case, and I am not going to argue with any of it. Now comes the part that matters.