Two utilities lead the opening-range board
Most mornings the strongest opening-range setups on our board are chips, chemicals, or a biotech gapping on news. Today the top two graded longs are utilities, and the reason is the same force lifting the whole market: the electricity bill for artificial intelligence.
Dominion Energy ($D) grades A+, the highest we assign, with a 74% win rate on the 15-minute opening-range long across 88 backtested trades. The catalyst is hard to miss, a $67B all-stock merger with NextEra Energy that both sides frame around surging data-center power demand, and Jefferies moving the stock to Buy with a $76 target after a long re-rating.
NiSource ($NI) sits right beside it, in a squeeze on 9 timeframes and trading near 52-week highs on the back of long-term power agreements with Amazon and an Alphabet data-center in Indiana. It has won 77% of its 15-minute opening-range longs over 22 trades.
Both are watches, not breaks. The opening range sets in the first 15 minutes after the bell, and only a hold above it puts either name in play. But the story underneath is worth watching all week: when the market wants AI exposure now, it is increasingly buying the companies that keep the servers running.