XLU

State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF

etf all instruments
-3.2
net board stance what this means
43.47
+0.9% · close 2026-09-08
-0% / -0% / +8%
1m / 3m / 12m
-20%
vs SPY since 2024-11-01
47%
of 52w range · -7.7% off high
1/1
hit rate as primary · α +9

Where we stand — 1 live idea

ideacallplayconvictioncontributesflageval in
⚡ Utilities are the biggest dollar short of the distributed-energy era ▼ SHORT primary 3.2 -3.2 129d

Where the winds are blowing

NET BOARD STANCE, LAST 60 EPISODES — rising = the besties are building this position, falling = abandoning it. Replayed from score_events; an idea counts from birth until its window closes.
PRICE VS SPY OVER THE SAME WINDOW, % — did the talk lead the tape or follow it?

Who's pushing which way

each voice's net push ON THIS TICKER — their most recent stance per idea × the idea's direction × strength, so supporting a bearish idea pushes down. Not conviction (that lives on the idea); this is direction of travel per person. what w= means

Friedberg
Friedberg w=0.78 energy
1 idea (0 live) · last heard E229
+3
pushes up
TH
Thomas Laffont guest ×1.0
1 idea (0 live) · last heard E212
+3
pushes up
TR
Travis Kalanick guest ×1.0
1 idea (0 live) · last heard E213
+3
pushes up
DO
Donald Trump guest ×0.5
1 idea (0 live) · last heard E184
+2
pushes up
Jason
Jason w=1.00 energy
1 idea (0 live) · last heard E229
+2
pushes up
Gavin Baker
Gavin Baker guest ×1.0
1 idea (0 live) · last heard E206
+2
pushes up
BE
Ben Shapiro guest ×1.0
1 idea (0 live) · last heard E228
+2
pushes up
Chamath
Chamath w=0.55 energy
2 ideas (1 live) · last heard E258
+1
pushes up
Sacks
Sacks w=0.94 energy
1 idea (0 live) · last heard E229
+1
pushes up

What resolves next

kill dates for the live ideas holding this ticker — each one turns into a scored verdict on that date, whether we like it or not

2027-01-17 129d ⚡ Utilities are the biggest dollar short of the distributed-energy era 3

Track record on XLU

As a PRIMARY play the besties are 1 hit / 0 partial / 0 miss over 1 closed window — credit 1.0, average α +8.9. Adjacent plays are listed but never scored.

ideacallplayverdictRαclosed
⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation ▲ LONG primary HIT +19.3% +8.9 2025-06-20

The tape — what was actually said

every capture on any idea holding XLU, newest first · quotes verbatim, timestamps deep-link into the episode

Chamath Chamath support ×2 ▼ on ⚡ Utilities are the biggest dollar short of the distributed-energy era E258 · 2026-01-17 ▶ 30:19
I think the single biggest dollar short, it's not clear when, that one will be able to make, will be on these utilities ... all of a sudden you have private homeowners that are their own utility and then Friedberg, C&I being their own power utility, what do the utilities do? What does all this capex go to? How do they pay back their bonds? What happens to their rate base?
Sacks Sacks support ×1 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E229 · 2025-05-24 ▶ 1:23:08
Well, I agree that you need to build out power, but I think the administration is committed to doing that. Drill baby, drill.
Jason Jason support ×2 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E229 · 2025-05-24 ▶ 1:30:13
This generation's Manhattan and Apollo Project is energy production scaling in the United States. That's it. All the other shit flows.
Friedberg Friedberg support ×3 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E229 · 2025-05-24 ▶ 1:24:47
The thing I do watch the most, Sacks, and that I do think, you and I have talked about this, that I do think is the critical linchpin for all of those other points of abundance being unleashed is the energy equation.
Chamath Chamath support ×3 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E229 · 2025-05-24 ▶ 1:26:59
Yeah, look at the number of times that Elon has said this. Like it's like the amount of energy that's available if we just harness it from the sun and redirect it with some storage, would solve all of our problems. But the problem is that we're at like just a little over a terawatt. We're inching along in gigawatts, whereas China is in the terawatts, adding terawatts.
BE Ben Shapiro support ×2 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E228 · 2025-05-17 ▶ 1:13:02
because we are rapidly scaling with regard to our own energy production. You have to be an energy intensive nation in order to produce AI. And so the United States has to play this game.
Sacks Sacks support ×2 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E226 · 2025-05-02 ▶ 1:21:17
And you see that on the power side, right? You're going from 100 megawatt datacenters to 300 megawatts to, we're just starting to now see the first gigawatt power datacenters. I don't even think they're live yet, but this is where they're trying to get to. And I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that we could be at five or 10 gigawatt datacenters in the next, I don't know, several years.
Chamath Chamath support ×3 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E222 · 2025-04-05 ▶ 1:18:01
But then underneath that AI thing, we have these two very complicated problems. One is a meaningful energy problem. I've been talking about this now incessantly. We don't have enough electrons. We just don't.
Chamath Chamath support ×3 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E218 · 2025-03-08 ▶ 28:07
We know that AI needs a tremendous amount of power. And whatever you thought you knew, actually, you had to re-underwrite because what Elon has shown is actually you need to now create these mega clusters, 100,000 GPUs going to a million GPUs. All of the power forecasting that we have is miscast. It doesn't even account for this, number one. Number two, there are 35,000 applications into FERC to get approved to generate electricity. 35,000, that's going to meander through some administrative rigmarole. There is a five-year delay to get a gas turbine into America and online.
Sacks Sacks support ×1 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E215 · 2025-02-15 ▶ 27:58
We have to win some of these key building block technologies, we want to win in chips, we want to win in AI models, we want to win in applications. He said we need to build, we need to unlock energy for these companies.
Friedberg Friedberg support ×2 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E213 · 2025-01-31 ▶ 1:32:48
That's super interesting, Travis. That's like, it's almost like the idea that we all talk about today is data centers and data centers need their own power substations.
TR Travis Kalanick support ×3 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E213 · 2025-01-31 ▶ 1:25:20
But then there's like this dark horse that nobody's talking about, which is, it's called electricity, it's called power. And all these vehicles are electric vehicles. And if you said, yeah, I just did some like quick back of the envelope calcs, if all of the miles in California went EV ride sharing, you would need to double the energy capacity of California.
Chamath Chamath support ×2 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E212 · 2025-01-25 ▶ 1:27:42
But just today it looked like President Trump overturned it and now it's full seam ahead. If you have it permitted, then it's all about just get the power, however you need the power, which I think is the smart decision. Back to your earlier point, we are in a race here.
TH Thomas Laffont support ×3 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E212 · 2025-01-25 ▶ 1:25:00
If you think of the GPU as the atomic unit of the future, right, and the key competitive advantage and the key kind of ingredient, you can't power a GPU without a data center, and you can't use a data center without power. So I do think at the end of the day, it really comes down to the grid and it comes down to power. So I think that's kind of constraint number one.
Friedberg Friedberg support ×3 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E212 · 2025-01-25 ▶ 56:37
which is energy, electricity capacity buildout in the United States because it's critical. Building AI infrastructure means that we need to build energy infrastructure.
Gavin Baker Gavin Baker support ×2 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E206 · 2024-12-07 ▶ 16:13
I mean, more nuclear, more better
Friedberg Friedberg support ×3 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E206 · 2024-12-07 ▶ 14:37
But for me, it has to be such a priority that we accelerate a nuclear energy rollout in the United States, because that's what China is doing
Chamath Chamath oppose ×3 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E200 · 2024-10-18 ▶ 1:04:44
I think by the time that you are rate-limited by energy, you'll have a plethora of solutions.
Friedberg Friedberg support ×3 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E200 · 2024-10-18 ▶ 48:57
there is no way to meet the energy demand without nuclear
Jason Jason support ×1 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E189 · 2024-07-26 ▶ 1:35:27
And the downstream is they can power more H100s, run bigger jobs.
Friedberg Friedberg support ×2 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E189 · 2024-07-26 ▶ 1:27:18
We talk a lot about wanting to onshore manufacturing in the US., build out new manufacturing technologies, but ultimately all of these industries, particularly AI., are going to be driven by the cost of power.
DO Donald Trump support ×2 ▲ on ⚡ AI datacenter demand needs double-to-triple current US electricity generation E184 · 2024-06-20 ▶ 15:24
The amount of electricity that is like double what we have right now and even triple what we have right now, they are, it's incredible how much they need to be the leader. And we're going to have to be able to do that.