PG&E Corp. just capped its worst week in nine years on speculation that downed power lines may have played a role in deadly wildfires raging across California. And the rout is far from over.
After wiping out almost $6 billion of PG&E’s market value this week, investigations into whether PG&E’s power lines helped ignite the blazes that have destroyed homes and forced thousands to evacuate threaten to plague the utility owner’s stock for months. Evercore ISI said investors are pricing in “significant financial exposure” of about $8.4 billion to fires while RBC Capital Markets said it could take fire officials six to eight months to come up with a report.
