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AI infrastructure momentum (AMD/INTC/ARM basket) long

Buy AMD and ARM (and add Intel only if it holds gains). The news flow is macro/risk-on (oil down, AI bid, AI safety talks), and the whole AI complex is moving together. AMD crossing $1T market cap and broad neocloud strength suggest continued inflows into AI infrastructure names, not just one stock.

Key Risk: A sharp risk-off move (oil spike or geopolitical shock) or a sudden AI policy/safety headline that hits the whole sector’s multiple.

CoreWeave (CRWV) short

Sell CRWV. The article flags a head-and-shoulders pattern with neckline near $67 and the stock still below key moving averages. Even with today’s 6% pop on risk-on sentiment, the technical setup points to a bearish reversal back toward $67, then $50. Fundamentals are strong, but the chart says the market is fading the move.

Key Risk: CRWV breaks and holds above the neckline (~$67) and then reclaims its moving averages, proving the rally is trend-changing.

CoreWeave stock jumped by over 6% on Monday as investors rotated back to companies in the artificial intelligence industry. CRWV jumped to $86.57, up modestly from last week’s low of $78. 

CoreWeave’s surge coincided with that of other AI companies. AMD stock jumped by 11% to $608, with its market capitalization crossing the $1 trillion mark for the first time ever. Intel jumped by 12%, while Arm Holdings and DigitalOcean soared by over 15%.

Other neocloud companies were also in the green today. Nebius rose by 5.5%, while IREN and RIOT platforms rose by over 4%. 

There was no major news that drove the news. Instead, its performance was due to a risk-on sentiment among investors as crude oil prices dropped and as traders waited for the upcoming meeting between President Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. 

The two leaders are expected to discuss a range of issues, including artificial intelligence safety standards. Meanwhile, AI stocks are climbing as investors bet that the AI boom will continue despite growing concerns about safety.

CoreWeave, a former Bitcoin mining company, has emerged as one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. Its most recent results showed that its revenue surged by 112% in the second quarter to $2.6 billion. Its adjusted EBITDA jumped by nearly 60% to $1.5 billion, while its total revenue backlog hitting $104 billion. 

The company’s revenue growth is expected to continue growing, thanks to its large deals with companies like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Anthropic. The average estimate is that its annual revenue will jump to $12.9 billion this year, up sharply from the $5.13 billion it made last year. This figure will then jump to $26.3 billion next year. In a statement, the company’s CEO said:

"CoreWeave reached an important inflection point this quarter as our scale began to translate into expanding operating leverage. Customer demand is accelerating, as enterprise adoption broadens and we continue to deepen our technology platform.”

Still, despite this growth, the company faces some major challenges. For example, its total debt continues to surge and is approaching the $30 billion mark. It is also facing challenges as key products like servers and GPUs see higher prices.

CRWV stock chart | Source: TradingView

Technicals suggest that the CRWV stock has come under pressure in the past few months. It peaked at $137.60 in May and then retreated to the current $86.84. 

A closer look at the chart shows that the stock has remained below the short-term and longer-term moving averages. At the same time, it has formed a head-and-shoulders pattern whose neckline was at $67. This pattern normally leads to a bearish reversal. 

Therefore, the stock may resume the downtrend, with the initial target being at $67. A drop below that level will point to more downside, potentially to the support level of $50. 

CoreWeave Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV – Get Free Report)’s stock price traded up 1.9% on Friday . The company traded as high as $81.74 and last traded at $81.36. 66,053,354 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 132% from the average daily volume of 28,522,719 shares. The stock had previously closed at $79.88.

CoreWeave News Summary Here are the key news stories impacting CoreWeave this week:

Positive Sentiment: CoreWeave priced an upsized $3.7 billion convertible senior-notes offering carrying a relatively low 2.875% coupon and maturing in 2033. The proceeds should help fund additional data-center and AI-compute expansion. CoreWeave Prices Upsized $3.7 Billion Convertible Senior Notes Offering Positive Sentiment: Demand indicators remain strong: CoreWeave reported a $104.2 billion backlog, more than $25 billion of new customer commitments early in the third quarter, and short-term contracts priced at approximately $40 million per megawatt in annualized revenue. These figures support substantial growth visibility. CoreWeave Continues to Contract New Compute Capacity at Higher Prices Positive Sentiment: The company became the first neocloud provider to deploy NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72 clusters, strengthening its positioning in next-generation AI infrastructure and agentic-AI workloads. Rosenblatt reaffirmed a Buy rating with a $250 price target. CoreWeave Boosts Agentic AI With Multi-Rack NVIDIA Vera Rubin Clusters Neutral Sentiment: ARK reportedly bought shares following the financing-related decline, potentially providing sentiment support, although the purchase does not change CoreWeave’s underlying financial risks. Cathie Wood’s ARK Buys CoreWeave Dip After Stock Drops on $3 Billion Debt Deal Negative Sentiment: The capital raise initially pressured the stock because the convertible notes add debt and may create future dilution; CoreWeave also authorized an at-the-market sale of up to 35 million shares. Heavy capital spending, high interest costs, negative earnings and a debt-to-equity ratio above 5 further concern investors. CoreWeave Launches $3 Billion Convertible Debt Sale Negative Sentiment: Bernstein identified CoreWeave as particularly exposed to a slowdown in AI-training demand, while analysts continue to flag customer concentration and the risk that the backlog will be difficult or expensive to convert into profitable growth. Bernstein Flags CoreWeave as Most Exposed to an AI Training Slowdown Negative Sentiment: CEO Michael Intrator disclosed sales of roughly $25.2 million of CRWV stock under a prearranged Rule 10b5-1 plan. While scheduled sales are not necessarily a bearish signal, the transactions may weigh on sentiment. Analyst Ratings Changes CRWV has been the topic of a number of research reports. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their price target on shares of CoreWeave from $67.00 to $74.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 12th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft restated a “buy” rating and set a $150.00 price objective on shares of CoreWeave in a research report on Friday, August 7th. Mizuho lifted their target price on CoreWeave from $100.00 to $115.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 12th. Weiss Ratings upgraded CoreWeave from a “sell (e+)” rating to a “sell (d-)” rating in a research report on Wednesday, June 24th. Finally, Needham & Company LLC reissued a “hold” rating on shares of CoreWeave in a research note on Thursday, August 13th. Twenty-one analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, ten have issued a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $142.31.

Get Our Latest Report on CoreWeave The company has a 50-day moving average of $85.08 and a 200 day moving average of $93.95. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.53, a current ratio of 0.46 and a quick ratio of 0.46. The company has a market cap of $37.33 billion, a PE ratio of -22.29 and a beta of 7.45.

CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 11th. The company reported ($1.14) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($1.52) by $0.38. The business had revenue of $2.58 billion during the quarter. CoreWeave had a negative return on equity of 47.95% and a negative net margin of 25.41%.CoreWeave’s revenue for the quarter was up 112.5% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned ($0.27) earnings per share. Analysts predict that CoreWeave Inc. will post -5.19 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling at CoreWeave In other CoreWeave news, major shareholder Magnetar Financial Llc sold 307,131 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $108.75, for a total value of $33,400,496.25. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 220,810 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $24,013,087.50. This trade represents a 58.18% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Michael Intrator sold 278,560 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, June 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $97.43, for a total value of $27,140,100.80. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 3,138,612 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $305,794,967.16. This trade represents a 8.15% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders have sold 7,014,950 shares of company stock valued at $629,986,096 over the last ninety days. 24.20% of the stock is owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On CoreWeave Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Wellington Altus USA Inc. lifted its position in shares of CoreWeave by 256.0% during the second quarter. Wellington Altus USA Inc. now owns 534 shares of the company’s stock worth $53,000 after purchasing an additional 384 shares during the last quarter. IKE Capital LLC grew its holdings in shares of CoreWeave by 98.6% in the second quarter. IKE Capital LLC now owns 13,690 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,363,000 after purchasing an additional 6,796 shares during the last quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company increased its stake in CoreWeave by 7.0% in the 2nd quarter. The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company now owns 23,616 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,351,000 after buying an additional 1,536 shares during the period. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in CoreWeave by 3.6% during the 2nd quarter. Sequoia Financial Advisors LLC now owns 4,128 shares of the company’s stock valued at $411,000 after buying an additional 145 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bienville Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in CoreWeave by 72.6% during the 2nd quarter. Bienville Capital Management LLC now owns 145,183 shares of the company’s stock valued at $14,452,000 after buying an additional 61,083 shares in the last quarter.

CoreWeave Company Profile (Get Free Report)

CoreWeave, Inc is a specialized cloud computing provider focused on infrastructure for artificial intelligence, machine learning, high-performance computing and other data-intensive workloads. The company provides access to accelerated computing resources, particularly graphics processing units (GPUs), through a cloud platform designed for large-scale training, inference, rendering and scientific computing.

Its offerings include on-demand and reserved GPU instances, cloud storage, high-speed networking, Kubernetes-based container orchestration and managed services for deploying and scaling workloads.

Further Reading Five stocks we like better than CoreWeave Lennar’s Earnings Miss May Be Sending a Bigger Warning About U.S. Housing Priced for a Pullback or More Gains? These 3 Stocks Are Testing the Limits These 3 Agentic AI Stocks Have More Than Hype Behind Their Growth Stories Not Just Banks: 3 Trading Stocks to Watch After the Fed Rate Hike Receive News & Ratings for CoreWeave Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CoreWeave and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter.

Key Takeaways CoreWeave's backlog reached $104.2B, while 2026 revenue guidance rose to $12.4-$13.2B.CRWV trades at 1.76 times forward sales, below the cited sub-industry, sector and S&P 500 benchmarks.CoreWeave posted $1.51B in adjusted EBITDA, but its net loss widened to $626M amid rising costs. CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV - Free Report) offers investors a sharp trade-off. AI demand is translating into a large contracted backlog and rapid revenue growth, while the shares trade below several forward sales benchmarks.

The question is whether that valuation gap is enough to offset a capital-intensive expansion model, rising financing needs and continuing losses, or whether waiting for clearer evidence of sustainable profitability makes more sense.

CoreWeave’s Backlog Supports an Unusual Growth RunwayRevenue backlog stood at $104.2 billion at June 30, 2026, up 246% year over year, and excluded more than $25 billion of net new commitments added in early third-quarter 2026. More than half of that backlog was already tied to contracts where delivery had begun.

Management raised 2026 revenue guidance to $12.4-$13.2 billion and lifted its year-end annualized run-rate revenue forecast to $18.5-$19.5 billion. Those targets give investors a measurable framework for judging whether new capacity is coming online fast enough to convert demand into revenues.

CRWV Valuation Offers a Lower Sales MultipleCRWV trades at a forward 12-month price-to-sales ratio of 1.76, compared with 4.2 for the Zacks sub-industry, 5.95 for the sector and 4.63 for the S&P 500. That places the stock below each cited benchmark on this measure.

The lower multiple, however, sits beside an unusually capital-intensive model and negative earnings. Whether the valuation gap adequately compensates investors depends on future cash generation and the financing required to deliver contracted capacity.

CoreWeave Must Finance a Massive Capacity BuildoutCoreWeave ended the second quarter with $15.553 billion of total liquidity, including facility availability. In the first half of 2026, net cash used in investing activities reached $14.874 billion, while financing activities provided $13.985 billion. The company expects future infrastructure investment to use debt, equity, delayed-draw facilities, vendor financing and balance-sheet cash.

The industry backdrop shows why capital access matters. Microsoft Corporation (MSFT - Free Report) reported $41 billion of fiscal fourth-quarter capital expenditures as Azure demand continued to exceed available capacity. Oracle Corporation (ORCL - Free Report) said fiscal first-quarter 2027 cloud infrastructure revenues rose 121% to $7.4 billion, while free cash flow was negative $5 billion as it invested to support cloud growth.

CRWV Profitability Still Trails Its Revenue ExpansionAdjusted EBITDA reached $1.51 billion in the second quarter, up from $753 million a year earlier, but adjusted EBITDA margin slipped to 59% from 62%. Net loss widened to $626 million from $290 million as interest expense and infrastructure costs weighed on results.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

CoreWeave Signals Point to a Wait-and-See SetupCoreWeave has substantial evidence of demand and a lower forward sales ratio than the cited benchmarks, but its funding model and continuing losses leave important execution questions unresolved. Investors therefore have growth visibility and valuation support to weigh against financing and profitability risk.

CRWV currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). It also has a VGM Score of F, a Value Score of D, a Growth Score of D and a Momentum Score of D. The #3 Rank lacks the stronger near-term signal associated with the top Zacks Ranks, while the D and F Style Scores are less favorable on value, growth and momentum characteristics. Together, those readings fit a wait-and-see setup while investors monitor backlog conversion, funding costs and earnings progress. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Nvidia-backed CoreWeave (CRWV.O) said on Thursday it plans to raise $3 billion through a ​convertible debt offering, highlighting the massive funding needs ‌to support the AI infrastructure buildout.

Shares of the neocloud were down more than 3% in early trading. Through the last close, ​they have gained over 16% so far ​this year.

Here are some more details:

Initial buyers of ⁠the debt may purchase up to an additional $500 million. ​CoreWeave said it would use some of the money ​to protect against dilution and the rest would fund its operations.

It also launched an at-the-market stock sale program for up to ​35 million shares, potentially raising about $2.92 billion at Wednesday's ​closing price, though it will determine whether to sell shares based ‌on ⁠market conditions.

The ATM program, managed by Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and others, is part of CoreWeave's effort to move toward an investment-grade credit profile.

In the ​third quarter, ​CoreWeave said it ⁠signed short-term customer contracts for compute capacity priced at about $40 million per megawatt ​on an annualized basis. It increased contracted ​power to ⁠about 4.2 gigawatts from 3.7 GW at the end of June.

In August, the company reported revenue backlog of $104.2 billion ⁠in ​the second quarter, later disclosing more ​than $25 billion in additional customer commitments signed early in the third ​quarter.

Key Takeaways CoreWeave is bringing multi-rack NVIDIA Rubin NVL72 clusters to its cloud for next-gen AI workloads.CRWV adds cross-region writes and a lower-cost Archive tier to improve data access and retention.Local Object Transport Accelerator can cut latency up to 8x and deliver up to 7 GB/s per GPU. CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV - Free Report) is expanding its capabilities for next-generation AI workloads with the deployment of multi-rack NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) Vera Rubin NVL72 clusters on CoreWeave Cloud. The company also introduced two new capabilities for its AI Object Storage platform — cross-region write acceleration and a lower-cost Archive tier. These developments are designed to help customers scale compute-intensive agentic AI workloads while keeping critical data readily accessible to GPUs.

The multi-rack Vera Rubin NVL72 deployment allows hundreds of NVIDIA Rubin GPUs to operate as a single scale-out cluster. A single NVL72 rack combines 72 Rubin GPUs with 36 Vera CPUs, NVIDIA NVLink 6, ConnectX-9 SuperNICs and BlueField-4 DPUs. CoreWeave connects multiple racks using NVIDIA Spectrum-X Ethernet networking, creating a larger coordinated computing environment. CRWV automates rack deployment and validation through its Mission Control platform, coordinating hardware, firmware, power, cooling and workload testing to ensure that multi-rack systems operate as a unified platform.

CoreWeave is also addressing data-access bottlenecks. Its Local Object Transport Accelerator caches data locally and, according to management, can reduce latency by up to 8x compared with traditional storage-cluster reads while delivering up to 7 GB/s of throughput per GPU. The newly introduced cross-region write capability allows customers to write data locally while CoreWeave replicates it to another region in the background. Moreover, the new Archive tier provides a lower-cost option for retaining infrequently accessed datasets, checkpoints and model versions.

As AI workloads become larger and more complex, customers increasingly require high-performance compute, networking and storage to operate together. For CRWV, the key opportunity is to convert growing demand for advanced AI infrastructure into higher utilization, revenue and cash flow. However, it still operates in a highly competitive AI cloud market dominated by players like Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) and Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS - Free Report) .

CRWV Faces Intensifying AI Infrastructure RivalryNBIS has emerged as an ambitious player in the AI cloud infrastructure space. It plans to invest £1.7 billion in U.K. AI infrastructure, adding three advanced NVIDIA-powered deployments to support growing AI demand. NBIS recently partnered with Palantir for AI-native cloud infrastructure. Under the agreement, Nebius will provide AI compute and inference infrastructure to Palantir’s commercial customers. NBIS expects connected power capacity to reach roughly 800 MW to 1 GW by 2026 end. In March, NVDA invested $2 billion in NBIS to develop the next generation of hyperscale AI cloud infrastructure jointly. Nebius plans to deploy more than 5 GW of AI computing capacity by 2030.

Microsoft is capitalizing on AI business momentum and Copilot adoption while accelerating Azure cloud infrastructure expansion. Its AI investments are converting into measurable commercial traction across its stack. Multi-model flexibility, paired with continued access to OpenAI's frontier models under an IP arrangement extending to 2032, allows customers to optimize cost and performance while keeping Microsoft central to their AI infrastructure decisions. However, Microsoft’s August 2026 receipt of NVIDIA’s first production Vera Rubin GPUs and its June 2026 completion of the first Mount Pleasant data center facility show that infrastructure expansion is progressing, but they also illustrate the scale of investment needed to support demand.

CRWV Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesShares of CoreWeave have gained 24.4% year to date against the Internet Software industry’s fall of 0.6%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

On a price-to-book basis, CRWV’s shares trade at 7.94X, higher than the Internet Software Services industry’s 4.89X.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CRWV’s earnings for the current year has been revised downward over the past 60 days.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

CRWV currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

This year has been a volatile one for artificial intelligence (AI) company CoreWeave (CRWV -5.48%). Its success largely hinges on demand for all things AI-related, as the company makes money by providing customers access to Nvidia's high-end chips.

Over the past 12 months, however, the stock has declined by 24%, and it's currently trading around $84 -- a far cry from its 52-week high of more than $153. Investors have been growing more concerned about AI stocks as a whole, especially ones like CoreWeave that continue to struggle with profitability.

But CoreWeave's CEO recently gave investors some good news that could boost the stock heading into the latter part of the year: there continues to be sky-high demand.

Image source: Getty Images.

CoreWeave's business is likely to continue growing at a fast rateAt a recent tech conference, CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator stated that the company is "struggling to meet demand every day," calling this a "unique moment" for the business. Demand for leading chips remains robust, a good sign for investors who may have been worried about potential slowdowns ahead.

CoreWeave is coming off an incredibly strong second quarter, where its sales rose by 112%, totaling $2.6 billion for the period ending June 30. One troubling sign, however, remains its lack of profitability. Despite the sharp increase in business, CoreWeave incurred an operating loss of $49 million, before accounting for its interest costs, which totaled $640 million during the period.

The strong growth may, however, be enough to convince AI investors to remain bullish on CoreWeave. And the business is making progress with respect to its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), which totaled $1.5 billion during the period and was double what it was a year ago ($753 million).

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Is CoreWeave's stock likely to rally before the end of 2026?Although it hasn't been a smooth ride for CoreWeave's stock in 2026, it's still up around 18% thus far. With encouraging signs that demand is likely to remain strong in upcoming quarters, I believe the stock may end up rallying before the end of the year. However, how much higher it will go may inevitably depend on the outlook for tech in general, plus what happens with interest rates.

For long-term investors bullish on the AI story, CoreWeave may be a good growth stock to buy given its close relationship with Nvidia, as companies continue to invest heavily in AI.

CoreWeave and Nebius are both racing to stack GPU capacity while the 10-year Treasury hovers near its yearly peak, but their debt loads could not be more different. Which neocloud survives a rate hike without flinching?

Nebius Group (NASDAQ:NBIS | NBIS Price Prediction) and CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) just delivered Q2 2026 earnings reports that show two neoclouds racing to build GPU capacity while the 10-year Treasury sits at 4.80%, the high of the past year. With the fed funds upper bound still at 3.75% and hike odds creeping back in, both companies are funding massive buildouts through debt, equity, and customer prepayments. Their exposure looks very different up close.

Backlog Giants With Very Different Balance Sheets CoreWeave posted $2.575 billion in Q2 revenue, up 112.3% year over year, with a $104 billion backlog anchored by Meta, OpenAI, and Microsoft. Nebius came in smaller at $582.3 million, but grew 454% and carries a $37.5 billion RPO plus a $27 billion Meta agreement. Both are competitive wins. Both leave the companies dependent on capital markets to fund GPU orders that show up before the revenue does.

The debt story is where they split. CoreWeave carries $51.6 billion of combined short and long-term debt with $16.5 billion in capital lease obligations, and its Q2 interest expense hit $640 million, more than swallowing its $49 million operating loss. Q3 interest expense is guided to $860 to $940 million. Nebius, by contrast, ended June with $8.04 billion in cash against roughly $10.06 billion of debt and leases, and CFO commentary noted “almost no corporate level debt”.

Different Playbooks for a 4.80% World CoreWeave went bigger and faster. Management raised full-year capex guidance to $35 to $39 billion and cut weighted average cost of debt by almost 300 basis points, saving roughly $1.1 billion annualized. Nebius leaned on customer prepayments covering 50 to 60% of capex on landmark deals, and priced its first asset-backed facility at SOFR plus 250 basis points.

Lens NBIS CRWV Q2 Revenue $582.3M $2.575B Backlog / RPO $37.5B $104B Q2 Interest Expense $119.1M $640M Debt/Equity Moderate 8.94 Where the Next Refinancing Bites CoreWeave completed a syndicated term loan during what management called “one of the most dislocated weeks for credit this year”. If yields keep rising, refinancing that $51.6 billion stack gets more expensive fast. Nebius has more runway. Its Q2 operating cash flow of $2.3 billion plus “more than $9 billion” in expected 2026 customer prepayments materially reduce external funding needs. The Palantir preferred-partner designation this week added narrative fuel, sending shares up 30.55% over the last month.

Why Nebius Screens Better as Rates Rise If hike odds keep climbing, the neocloud with less debt, more cash, and prepayments doing the heavy lifting screens more defensively. That is Nebius. CoreWeave’s contribution margins and pricing power are impressive, and CEO Michael Intrator’s line that “demand continues to exceed supply across sectors, geographies, and generations of infrastructure” is credible. But interest expense already exceeds operating income, and the company must keep tapping credit markets to hit its 8-gigawatt-by-2030 target. For a growth-at-any-cost investor, CRWV remains aligned with that profile. For investors focused on a higher-for-longer 10-year, the balance sheet less dependent on the next bond deal clearing screens more defensively.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

CoreWeave cannot get enough Nvidia GPUs to satisfy its customers, but that was not enough to stop investors from selling the stock on Wednesday.

Shares of the AI cloud provider fell 4.9% to $94.94, reversing part of Tuesday’s 11.7% jump, while the Nasdaq lost 0.64%.

That captures Wall Street’s debate over CoreWeave. Demand remains exceptionally strong and pricing is improving, but capturing that demand requires tens of billions of dollars in GPUs, data centres and financing.

CoreWeave chief executive Michael Intrator told Yahoo Finance at Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia + Technology Conference that the company was “struggling to meet demand every day”.

“Every GPU we have could be sold to multiple different clients,” he said.

That scarcity is giving CoreWeave more pricing power.

Truist Securities analyst Arvind Ramnani raised his price target to $165 from $155 in August after CoreWeave increased pricing across its product lineup by 25% in July.

Ramnani said “pricing power is more than offsetting rising GPU costs”, with higher customer prices expected to flow clearly into margins during the second half of 2026.

CoreWeave’s second-quarter revenue backlog stood at about $104 billion, excluding more than $25 billion of commitments signed early in the third quarter.

Intrator also said Wednesday that the economics of newer infrastructure deals were improving because customer pricing was rising faster than costs for power, memory and other inputs.

That makes the selloff difficult to explain as evidence of weakening AI demand.

CoreWeave cannot convert that demand into revenue without continuously adding GPUs, power and data-centre capacity.

The company raised its 2026 capital-expenditure forecast to $35 billion-$39 billion from $31 billion-$35 billion. Second-quarter capex reached about $9.4 billion.

Bernstein captured the tension after CoreWeave’s latest results.

“This was the strongest print CRWV has delivered,” analysts said, according to Investing.com. But they added that while guidance increased across revenue, adjusted operating income, annualised run-rate revenue and active power, “capex went up higher than all of them”.

Bernstein raised its target to $74 from $67 but kept an Underperform rating, arguing that the company’s longer-term growth trajectory could still change quickly.

That explains why stronger demand does not translate into a higher stock price.

Every customer CoreWeave wants to serve creates another requirement for chips, infrastructure and financing. Revenue may arrive later, while much of the spending comes first.

CoreWeave is also paying heavily to finance that expansion. Its recently arranged $2.6 billion delayed-draw term loan carries an estimated interest rate of about 8.2%-9.2%, higher than many investors expected.

Freedom Capital Markets analyst Paul Meeks nevertheless sees an upside.

“The bright side here is that shorter-term contracts are now pricing & repricing at much higher rates,” Meeks wrote, arguing that they can remain more profitable even with CoreWeave’s higher borrowing costs.

Freedom retained a Buy rating and $151 target.

The bull case is therefore straightforward: scarce Nvidia compute keeps customer pricing high enough for margins to improve faster than financing costs rise.

The bear case is equally clear. If AI capacity becomes less scarce, customer pricing weakens or borrowing remains expensive, CoreWeave could be left with a huge capital base that produces lower-than-expected returns.

Wednesday’s decline does not suggest customers have stopped wanting GPUs. Intrator’s comments point to the opposite.

The harder question is what happens after CoreWeave gets those GPUs.

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CoreWeave (CRWV)

Buy CRWV. The OpenAI Astra model adds a fresh demand catalyst on top of a massive contracted base: ~$104B backlog and $22.4B OpenAI deal, plus raised 2026 revenue guidance ($12.4B–$13.2B). The key is the shift to long-dated, take-or-pay contracts and only ~36% of contracted power active—so revenue can expand as capacity gets energized, not just by chasing spot GPU demand. Expect valuation re-rating as visibility improves and margins benefit from better pricing/contract structure.

Key Risk: They fail to convert contracted power into active, revenue-generating infrastructure fast enough (execution/capex delays), so backlog doesn’t turn into results and leverage/margin pressure hits the stock.

NVIDIA (NVDA)

Buy NVDA. CRWV’s surge signals sustained hyperscaler/AI infrastructure buildout and tighter supply dynamics for accelerators and networking. If contracted demand keeps expanding and more capacity gets activated, NVDA’s data-center revenue mix benefits directly from higher AI compute deployments across customers like OpenAI and the broader ecosystem.

Key Risk: AI infrastructure demand slows or customers renegotiate down (or delay) GPU orders, causing NVDA growth to decelerate despite CRWV’s near-term catalyst.

CoreWeave CRWV stock jumped 16% on Tuesday as OpenAI’s new Astra model provided a fresh catalyst for the AI cloud infrastructure company.

CoreWeave has a $22.4 billion deal with OpenAI to provide computing power, adding to a growing base of contracted demand for its infrastructure.

The company’s momentum also follows strong second-quarter 2026 results reported last month.

CoreWeave posted revenue of $2.58 billion, up 112% year over year and above Wall Street expectations.

Its revenue backlog stood at approximately $104 billion, while more than $25 billion in new customer commitments were added during the early weeks of the third quarter.

Management also raised its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to between $12.4 billion and $13.2 billion, highlighting the scale of demand for AI computing infrastructure.

The company expects its ARR to reach approximately $250 million by year-end, while forecasting 2027 ARR of $18.5 billion to $19.5 billion.

CoreWeave’s business is increasingly centered on long-dated, take-or-pay style contracts rather than speculative GPU capacity sales.

These agreements provide customers with contracted access to NVIDIA accelerators and related networking, storage, and orchestration software.

According to a Seeking Alpha report, the shift has changed the company’s risk profile by providing greater revenue visibility and contract durability.

Seeking Alpha described CoreWeave as no longer primarily selling speculative capacity into an uncertain market, but instead delivering against a contracted order book that is more than 10 times its current annual revenue.

The analysis rated CoreWeave a buy with 15%-20% upside, while also identifying the company as the highest-risk name in the analyst’s model. It cited leverage and execution risks alongside the potential for margin expansion and a valuation re-rating.

Another factor highlighted in the analysis is CoreWeave’s unused contracted power capacity.

Only 36% of its contracted power is currently active, potentially leaving significant room for future revenue as additional capacity is energized.

Analysts remain constructive on CRWVAnalyst sentiment has remained positive following CoreWeave’s second-quarter results.

Truist Securities raised its price target on CRWV to $165 from $155 in late August, citing potential margin upside from improved pricing and contract structures.

Oppenheimer maintained its Outperform rating with a $150 price target. The firm argued that supply concerns were overblown compared with demand, which was described as running at roughly four times available capacity.

Billionaire investor David Tepper is also increasing exposure to AI-related companies. Appaloosa Management’s portfolio includes Amazon, Micron Technology, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Alphabet, with those four companies accounting for roughly half of the portfolio.

During the second quarter, Appaloosa added both Space Exploration Technologies and CoreWeave to its portfolio.

CoreWeave’s transition toward contracted AI infrastructure demand provides greater visibility, but the company remains exposed to leverage and execution risks. The balance between expanding capacity, converting contracted power into active infrastructure and improving margins will remain important to its outlook.

SummaryCoreWeave, Inc. retains my Strong Buy rating, as Q2 revealed a step-change in adjusted operating margin from 1% to 5%.CRWV’s forward guidance implies a massive Q4 ramp, with up to 60% of full-year adjusted operating income expected in that quarter.Weighted-average cost of debt fell by 300 basis points despite a hawkish Fed, signaling improved lender confidence and robust capital access.Bear risks center on surging interest expense and leverage, but margin ramp and contract durability—such as 2029 A100 GPU deals—support the bullish thesis. Erik Isakson/DigitalVision via Getty Images

Back in July, I covered CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV) and argued that the selloff was a rate scare without an underlying business problem, and that the crowd would find its way back to the

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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have no stock, option or similar derivative position in any of the companies mentioned, and no plans to initiate any such positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.

Shares of artificial intelligence (AI) cloud infrastructure provider CoreWeave (CRWV -3.58%) trade around $82 as of this writing, down about 47% from their 52-week high. But the business keeps growing at an extraordinary pace. Second-quarter revenue rose 112% year over year to about $2.6 billion, and the company's revenue backlog reached about $104 billion (a figure that excludes more than $25 billion of new commitments added early in the third quarter).

The cost of financing that growth is climbing even faster. CoreWeave's interest expense was $640 million in the second quarter -- 2.4 times the $267 million it recorded a year earlier.

And the bond market isn't helping. The 30-year Treasury yield has closed above 5% on 55 days since the start of January, the most closes above that mark in any year since 2006.

To be fair, CoreWeave doesn't borrow at 30-year maturities, and its debt doesn't price anywhere near Treasury yields. But in a bond market like that, I think borrowed money could stay expensive for a while. And CoreWeave needs a lot more of it.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

More debt, cheaper debtCoreWeave's interest expense has climbed every quarter for the past year, from $267 million in the second quarter of 2025 to $311 million, $388 million, $536 million, and now $640 million. The driver is the balance, not the rate. Total debt reached about $35 billion as of June 30, up from about $21 billion at the end of 2025. That is a lot of debt for a company that completed its initial public offering (IPO) less than 18 months ago.

The rate, in fact, has moved in CoreWeave's favor.

"Over the past year, we have reduced our weighted average cost of debt by almost 300 basis points, representing approximately $1.1 billion of annualized interest saving based on our end of Q2 debt load," chief financial officer Nitin Agrawal said in the company's second-quarter earnings call.

Those savings are real. Low-rate convertible notes and bigger credit facilities have replaced some of the expensive borrowing from earlier in its cloud build-out. The bill more than doubled anyway, because the balance grew far faster than the rate fell.

How expensive is all that debt?CoreWeave's latest quarterly filing lists effective interest rates for its borrowings, and the range is wide: 2% on its convertible notes, mostly 9% to 11% on its term loans and senior notes, and 15% on its oldest term loan.

Weight each rate by its balance, and the blended cost works out to about 8.4%. On a balance this size, each percentage point costs more than $350 million a year.

New money is still arriving above that average. CoreWeave issued senior notes at 9.75% in April and 9.625% in June, plus euro-denominated notes at 8.5% -- effective rates of 9% to 10% once fees and discounts are folded in.

And the $2.6 billion term loan facility it added in August prices at 5.5 percentage points over the benchmark short-term lending rate.

The broader bond market offers little sign of relief coming. The 30-year yield touched 5.34% in mid-August, its highest since 2007, and sits at about 5.27% as of this writing.

The bill keeps climbingManagement expects third-quarter interest expense of $860 million to $940 million, a step up of about 41% at the midpoint, against $200 million to $260 million of adjusted operating income.

Operating profit was already far behind. Adjusted operating income was $128 million in the second quarter, down from $200 million a year earlier even as revenue more than doubled.

But the maturity schedule, at least, looks manageable. About $4.4 billion of principal comes due through year-end and $6.2 billion in 2027, while nearly $15 billion isn't due until after 2030. Refinancing isn't the near-term problem, in my opinion. New borrowing is.

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That's because the spending isn't slowing down. CoreWeave spent $16.1 billion on capital expenditures in the first half, and its full-year guidance of $35 billion to $39 billion implies roughly $19 billion to $23 billion more in the second half.

Against that, CoreWeave held about $5.5 billion of cash at the end of June -- arguably not much next to spending plans that size.

Ultimately, the second quarter showed a company getting better at borrowing while needing more of it than ever. Sure, the spending builds the AI infrastructure behind the $104 billion of contracted revenue already on the books. But the interest bill is climbing faster than the operating profit that is supposed to carry it.

That gap is the number I'd watch. Interest expense ran about $500 million ahead of adjusted operating income in the second quarter, and guidance implies the distance widens in the third.

CoreWeave has shed nearly $70 from its May peak and now carries a $104 billion revenue backlog against a debt load that makes bears nervous. Whether the $85 price level is a gift or a trap depends on three catalysts…

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At roughly $84.89, CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) screens attractively for investors willing to underwrite the capital intensity behind the AI infrastructure buildout. The stock has round-tripped from a $136.80 May peak, resetting valuations.

CoreWeave runs a purpose-built, GPU-native cloud designed specifically for high-density AI training and inference. Legacy hyperscalers such as AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud carry decades of general-purpose enterprise workloads, while CoreWeave’s data centers were engineered from the ground up for foundational model labs and enterprise AI. That specialization shows up in lower latency and better price-to-performance for the customers that matter most in this cycle.

The company delivered $2.58 billion in Q2 revenue, up 112.32% year over year, and ended the quarter with a $104 billion revenue backlog. Yet shares sit near the middle of a 52-week range of $60.55 to $153.20.

Why the Neocloud Thesis Gets Sharper Below $90 Growth this fast is rare, and the price-to-performance gap versus hyperscalers is measurable. Signal 65 estimated CoreWeave delivers total cost of ownership up to 47% lower than the average hyperscaler, and Gartner named the company a visionary in its 2026 Magic Quadrant for Cloud AI Infrastructure.

Pricing power is evident. Management cited an approximately 25% price increase across SKUs in July, with Blackwell and Vera Rubin SKUs setting new highs. Adjusted EBITDA hit $1.51 billion at a 59% margin, and operating cash flow flipped to a positive $679 million. Add Nasdaq-100 inclusion and an $144.46 average analyst target, and the risk-reward skews favorably.

Why Bears See a Debt Time Bomb The bear case rests on capital intensity. Q2 free cash flow was negative $5.74 billion, and full-year 2026 capex guidance was raised to $35 to $39 billion. Interest expense reached $640 million in the quarter and is guided to $860 to $940 million in Q3.

Total liabilities of $72.05 billion tower over $5.02 billion in equity. Analysts have trimmed forward EPS estimates, with seven downward revisions against one upward for fiscal 2026 over the trailing 30 days. Any hiccup in capital markets access, GPU supply, or customer concentration could bite hard.

Why Patience Still Has a Case Revenue growth is real, but GAAP losses widened to $626 million and adjusted operating margin compressed to 5% from 16% from a year earlier. Investors waiting for the margin ramp toward the guided low teens in Q4 can watch backlog conversion and power additions before committing.

Data That Frames the Verdict CoreWeave trades at $84.89, with a consensus target of $144.46 that implies roughly 70% upside if the Street proves right. Coverage spans 37 analysts, with 5 Strong Buy, 21 Buy, 9 Hold, 1 Sell, and 1 Strong Sell ratings.

Year to date the stock is up 18.54% versus 12.48% for the S&P 500, though over the trailing year CRWV is down 17.61% while the index gained 18.91%. Shares carry a 6.12 price-to-sales and 12.38 EV/Sales, rich in absolute terms but reasonable against triple-digit growth.

Why the $85 Level Matters At $85, the setup for CoreWeave looks constructive. The path to appreciation runs through three catalysts. First, the $104 billion backlog plus more than $25 billion in new Q3 commitments gives multi-year revenue visibility that few growth stocks can match. Second, operating margins are guided to expand into the low teens by Q4, which reframes the leverage story. Third, active power scaling from 1.5 gigawatts today toward more than 1.85 gigawatts by year end converts contracted demand into billable revenue.

Buying near $84.89, well off the $153.20 high, builds in a cushion against the debt and capex concerns. The thesis breaks if credit markets tighten, if a top customer renegotiates, or if power buildouts slip materially.

For investors who believe the AI infrastructure cycle runs through 2030, CoreWeave at $85 represents one of the purest and most levered public-market exposures to that theme. The power, cooling, and networking suppliers feeding the same buildout are worth knowing too, and we profiled seven of them in a free report on the AI boom beyond the chipmakers.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

RUM Group CEO Chris Pavlovski just publicly named CoreWeave and Nebius as targets for his company's AI infrastructure arm, but the SEC filing sitting behind that bold claim reveals a financing gap that could stop the Maysville data center before…

RUM Group (NASDAQ:RUM) stock is up 11% to $10.44 Tuesday midday after CEO Chris Pavlovski publicly named CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV) and Nebius Group (NASDAQ:NBIS | NBIS Price Prediction) as targets for the company’s AI infrastructure push. RUM Group stock was up 48% year to date (YTD) through Monday’s close, extending a run that has reshaped the story around the former Rumble.

In contrast, Trump Media & Technology Group (NASDAQ:DJT) stock is down 0.7% to $9.23. Trump Media stock was down 30% YTD through Monday’s close, a reminder that retail still associates the two tickers despite very different businesses.

The sector backdrop is friendlier today than it was on Monday. Global X Data Center & Digital Infrastructure ETF (NASDAQ:DTCR) is up 2% to $28.53, joining today’s rally after fading in the prior session. Meanwhile, Global X Social Media ETF (NASDAQ:SOCL) is up 0.8% to $45.26, a milder tailwind for the platform side of the RUM Group story.

Quake AI Puts Neocloud Rivals on Notice Pavlovski used a post on X to sharpen his pitch, writing that “our Quake AI division is a real player, and we will fiercely compete with the likes of CoreWeave, Nebius and all neoclouds.” Quake AI is RUM Group’s AI infrastructure arm, seeded by the recently closed Northern Data deal and positioned alongside the media assets that most retail investors know as Rumble.

RUM Group began operating under that name after closing its all-stock acquisition of German AI cloud company Northern Data in June. The deal was agreed in November 2025 and valued at roughly $767 million, adding about 22,400 NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) GPUs including H100s and H200s. That installed base is the credibility foundation under Pavlovski’s challenge to larger neocloud names.

Financing Gap Behind the Ambition Monday’s catalyst was RUM Group’s six-year GPU services contract. The agreement is worth approximately $13.7 billion with an unidentified U.S.-based cloud provider, covering capacity from the Maysville, Georgia data center, which remains under development. Payment comes in three phases, and the third tranche is conditional on the customer approving the proposed delivery schedule.

Today’s wrinkle comes from RUM Group’s own filing language. The company stated in SEC filings that it currently lacks the financing required to fulfil the contract and plans to raise capital through debt or equity, while warning that its obligations to the customer aren’t dependent on securing that financing. That framing widens the visible gap between the CEO’s public ambition and the balance sheet behind Quake AI.

RUM Group lays the risk out plainly in an SEC filing:

If we are unable to obtain sufficient financing on acceptable terms, we may be unable to complete the facility, acquire the necessary GPUs and related equipment, meet applicable delivery milestones or otherwise timely perform our obligations under the Commercial Agreement.

The company also cited construction and permitting delays, higher costs, material shortages, labor constraints, power supply concerns, and regulatory uncertainty as risks.

Warrant Terms and Sector Read The customer’s incentive is baked into a warrant with meaningful dilution optionality for RUM Group holders. The warrant grants the customer up to 50.81 million Class A shares at $0.01 per share and carries a 10-year term. Half vests alongside the three GPU service tranches, and the remainder vests in five 10% increments as additional purchase agreements are signed, with full vesting once cumulative purchases exceed 2.5 times the initial contract value. Any unvested portion expires if the agreements lapse or are breached.

The data center complex is joining RUM Group today, a shift from Monday when DTCR was lower while RUM Group rallied alone. That signals whether this is a single-name story or a genuine sector bid, and the picks-and-shovels names powering the buildout are the ones we profiled in a free AI infrastructure report you can grab here. CoreWeave and Nebius Group remain the reference points investors will price Quake AI against, and both sit at valuations well above RUM Group’s current level.

Investors can watch for whether RUM Group stock holds the double-digit handle into the close, and whether the company follows Pavlovski’s post with a formal Quake AI investor presentation. The financing plan is the next material event, given that RUM Group’s contract obligations don’t wait for capital to arrive. Debt terms, equity dilution, and any Tether-related backstop are the levers that will define execution risk.

For their positions, investors should keep their exposure to RUM Group modest until the company details how debt or equity will fund the Maysville build. The gap between ambition and cash is wide, and dilution risk sits inside the warrant terms as well as any future raise. Trump Media stock remains sentiment-driven at the moment, and the DTCR ETF is a clean way to hold data center exposure without single-name execution risk.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Key Takeaways CoreWeave is benefiting from a $104B backlog and rapidly expanding AI infrastructure demand.CoreWeave raised its 2026 revenue outlook as adjusted EBITDA doubled to $1.5B with a 59% margin.Applied Digital faces high debt, customer concentration and execution risks across five major campuses. The AI boom is rapidly transforming the data center industry, creating major opportunities for companies that can provide the computing power, facilities and electricity needed to support AI workloads. Two companies attracting significant investor attention are CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV - Free Report) and Applied Digital (APLD - Free Report) . There is also an interesting strategic relationship between the two companies. CoreWeave itself is one of Applied Digital's major customers. APLD's infrastructure therefore allows investors to gain exposure to the same AI buildout from a different angle.

Per a report from Fortune Business Insights, the global AI data center market is projected to grow from $21.27 billion in 2026 to $133.51 billion by 2034, representing a CAGR of 25.8%. Although both are benefiting from the same secular trend, their business models are quite different. CoreWeave operates a specialized AI cloud platform, while Applied Digital focuses more heavily on developing and leasing large-scale data center infrastructure. This distinction matters when evaluating their growth potential, risk and valuation.

Let’s take a closer look.

The Case for APLD StockApplied Digital has been steadily evolving from a broader digital-infrastructure company into a more focused data center platform serving HPC, AI and accelerated-compute workloads. The company completed the separation of its cloud services business during fiscal 2026, with Applied Digital retaining approximately 96% of ChronoScale. Applied Digital also continues to have exposure to CoreWeave through its existing leases. It strengthened its CoreWeave leases through a restructured SPV, unconditional guarantees and a $50 million letter of credit.

However, the biggest challenge is the enormous amount of capital required to turn contracted projects into operating assets. Applied Digital had $4.2 billion in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash against $5 billion of debt as of May 31, 2026. The company recently completed a $2.15 billion senior secured notes offering to fund development at Polaris Forge 2 and later closed another $1.59 billion senior secured notes offering to fund the fourth building at Polaris Forge 1. It also expanded its revolving credit facility to support development.

Debt financing can accelerate growth, but it also increases interest obligations and execution risk. If construction costs rise, projects are delayed, or customer requirements change, the financial burden could grow. GAAP profitability is another concern. Applied Digital reported a fiscal fourth-quarter net loss attributable to common stockholders of $110.6 million and a loss of $249.2 million in fiscal 2026. Consequently, investors should not view adjusted EBITDA growth alone as proof that the company has already reached sustainable profitability.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Customer concentration remains another key risk for Applied Digital, with CoreWeave as the sole tenant across the fully leased 400 MW Polaris Forge 1 and a single crypto customer in its legacy hosting business. Execution risk is also elevated as the company develops five multibillion-dollar campuses simultaneously, making timely construction, power delivery and lease execution critical to converting capacity into stable rental income.

The Case for CRWV StockCoreWeave has emerged as a prominent AI-focused cloud infrastructure provider. Its platform is designed specifically for accelerated computing and AI workloads, giving customers access to large amounts of GPU computing capacity without having to build their own infrastructure. The company's latest results highlight the scale of demand. CoreWeave reported $2.6 billion in second-quarter revenue, while its revenue backlog reached approximately $104 billion as of June 30. It also disclosed more than $25 billion of additional customer commitments added early in the third quarter.

This hefty backlog provides substantial visibility into future revenue and demonstrates that major AI customers are willing to commit to long-term computing capacity. CoreWeave is also expanding beyond its existing customer base. Its relationships include AI labs, hyperscalers and enterprises, while recent customer wins and expansions include companies such as Caterpillar, Bentley Systems, Databricks, Hudson River Trading and Runway ML. Active power reached 1.5 GW, while contracted power rose to 3.7 GW by quarter-end and 4.2 GW afterward, keeping it on track for more than 8 GW of active power by 2030. CRWV also expects more than 1.85 GW of active power by year-end.

CoreWeave is also expanding beyond traditional GPU cloud infrastructure into higher-margin AI services. Its managed inference business grew from $1 million to more than $100 million in booked ARR within a few months, with management targeting at least $250 million by year-end. Storage, CPU, networking and software businesses already generated more than $400 million in ARR, while seven new AI platform capabilities and continued development of its AI-native platform are helping customers move from experimentation to production.

Profitability is beginning to benefit from increasing scale and pricing power. Adjusted EBITDA doubled year over year to $1.5 billion, with a 59% margin, while adjusted operating income increased to $128 million. Recent contracts are carrying contribution margins 5–10 percentage points higher than those signed in recent quarters, supported by strong demand, higher pricing and the value customers place on CRWV's performance and reliability. Management raised its 2026 outlook, now expecting revenue of $12.4–$13.2 billion, adjusted operating income of $960 million–$1.15 billion and year-end annualized revenue of $18.5–$19.5 billion.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The opportunity, however, comes with a major caveat. CoreWeave is extremely capital-intensive. The company raised its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $35 billion-$39 billion from $31 billion-$35 billion previously. The pressure is evident in its $567 million adjusted net loss, while interest expense more than doubled to $640 million as debt increased to fund expansion. With more than $32 billion of capital secured, leverage remains a concern, and interest expense is expected to rise to $860 million–$940 million. Supply-chain challenges, intensifying competition and reliance on large customers also pose risks if deployments are delayed or lost.

CRWV & APLD’s Share Performance TrajectoryIn the past month, CRWV has surged 24.4% while APLD is up 9.4%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

Valuation ConsiderationsCRWV trades at a forward 12-month price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 1.93, below APLD’s 8.01.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

How Do Zacks Estimates Compare for CRWV & APLD?The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CRWV’s earnings for the current year has been revised downward over the past 60 days.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for APLD’s earnings for the current fiscal year has also been revised downward over the past 60 days.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

CRWV or APLD: Which Stock Has More Upside?CRWV at present carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) while APLD has a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

For aggressive investors seeking the bigger long-term growth opportunity, CoreWeave appears to have the stronger case. Its enormous backlog, rapidly expanding revenue base and direct exposure to AI compute demand give it a powerful growth engine. Second-quarter results suggest that demand remains exceptionally strong, while management is expanding capacity aggressively to capture that opportunity. However, concerns include enormous capital requirements, leverage, customer concentration and the possibility that AI infrastructure supply eventually grows faster than demand. CRWV appears to be treading in the middle of the road, and new investors could be better off if they trade with caution.

Applied Digital faces different risks. Large data center projects can experience construction and power-delivery delays, while reliance on a relatively small number of large customers can create concentration risk. Management has also warned that labor and construction constraints could cause significant delays across the AI infrastructure industry during 2026 and 2027. Hence, investors should avoid this stock for now.

One of the hottest debates on Wall Street concerns the future of artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure spending and its potential impact on industry leaders, such as Nvidia (NVDA -2.50%). Some investors believe that the AI tailwind won't last much longer, and as it slows, Nvidia's shares will plunge. Others think the semiconductor specialist is still looking at a large growth runway. Who is right?

Earnings season has given us more evidence for the bull thesis. Consider, for instance, CoreWeave's (CRWV -3.35%) second-quarter results, released on Aug. 11. The AI-focused cloud computing company's update gave us more reasons to believe Nvidia's run is far from over. Here's what investors need to know.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

CoreWeave is firing on all cylinders CoreWeave operates data centers tailored for AI workloads. Since Nvidia's GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) are still arguably the most effective hardware for training and running AI applications, CoreWeave buys racks of them. As demand for the company's services increases, CoreWeave will need to expand its capacity and purchase additional GPUs. That seems to be what will continue happening for the foreseeable future, as evidenced by CoreWeave's second-quarter results.

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The company's revenue was $2.6 billion, up 112.5% year over year. CoreWeave's revenue backlog as of the end of the period was $104 billion, up 245.5% from the year-ago quarter. CoreWeave's operating and net losses widened compared to the prior-year quarter, but this reflects the company's continued investment in the business, which seems more than justified considering its revenue and backlog growth. Management pointed out that CoreWeave's capacity is sold out in the near-term, while demand continues to intensify.

What it means for Nvidia's future CoreWeave's excellent second-quarter results signaled that AI infrastructure spending hasn't peaked yet and were unquestionably a bullish sign for Nvidia. Does that mean investors should buy Nvidia's stock ahead of its upcoming earnings update? On Aug. 26, Nvidia will release its financial results for the second quarter of its fiscal year 2027, which ended on July 26.

However, the company is unlikely to impress the market, even if it beats on revenue and earnings, which it has done more often than not in recent years. Wall Street has ceased to be impressed by that. That said, Nvidia's shares may still be a buy ahead of Aug. 26 for investors focused on the long game.

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The company's lead in the GPU market remains impregnable, partly thanks to its CUDA ecosystem, which provides a wide moat from switching costs. Nvidia is also tapping into new opportunities. It estimates a $200 billion addressable market in the CPU (Central Processing Unit) industry, driven by the rise of agentic AI systems that run on CPUs. Nvidia is well-positioned to capture a corner of that space as well.

Lastly, the stock remains fairly valued. Nvidia is trading at 24.8x forward earnings, versus an average of 21.1x for information technology stocks. At the rate at which Nvidia's earnings continue to grow -- and given sustained demand for its products -- that seems more than fair. For all those reasons, the stock is still a buy.

powered by

CRWV long

Buy CoreWeave (CRWV). The thesis is pricing power: Truist expects CoreWeave to pass higher GPU costs through to customers, lifting contribution margins on longer-duration contracts from ~24% to ~33% in 2H 2026. With the market focused on bond-yield pressure, the stock’s pullback looks like a timing issue, not a demand issue—AI infrastructure demand is still supply-constrained and existing contracts face limited risk.

Key Risk: GPU price hikes and customer pushback hit renewal pricing, so margins don’t expand as costs rise.

Neocloud capital discipline short

Sell the neocloud “capital destruction” basket: short a high-capex neocloud peer versus CRWV (e.g., short a laggard like DigitalBridge/other neocloud-exposed names if available to you, or use an equal-weight short of neocloud peers). The second analyst warning is that heavy capital spending funded by debt can turn a growth story into low returns on invested capital. If rates stay high, financing costs amplify this risk and compress multiples across the group, while CRWV’s pricing power should be relatively better.

Key Risk: Peers prove they can fund growth cheaply and still earn strong returns, so the “capital destruction” narrative fails.

CoreWeave CRWV shares fell nearly 3% in premarket trading Monday as technology stocks came under pressure from rising global bond yields.

The 30-year US Treasury yield topped 5.3% last week, reaching levels not seen in nearly 20 years, while yields in Japan, France and Germany also climbed to multi-year highs.

Despite the broader pressure on technology stocks, Truist Securities remains bullish on CoreWeave, arguing that the company's pricing power can offset higher graphics processing unit (GPU) costs.

Truist Securities maintained a Buy rating on CoreWeave and raised its price target to $165 from $155. The new target implies nearly 88% upside from Friday's closing price.

Analyst Arvind Ramnani said CoreWeave's pricing power should more than offset rising GPU costs.

He expects higher prices charged by the company to largely flow through to margins in the second half of 2026, while Nvidia's higher costs are expected to affect systems shipped early next year.

Ramnani also estimated that contribution margins on future longer-duration contracts could rise from about 24% to 33%. Shorter-duration contracts and the re-contracting of previous-generation GPUs could provide additional upside, he said.

CoreWeave rents computing capacity using GPUs from Nvidia and other chipmakers.

Rising demand for memory and storage solutions linked to the artificial intelligence boom has pushed GPU prices higher.

Nvidia has reportedly raised prices for its latest GPUs by more than 15%, creating a potential margin challenge for CoreWeave. However, the company increased prices across its inventory by 25% in July, according to Ramnani, helping offset higher equipment costs.

Truist expects limited risk to CoreWeave's existing contracts and continues to view the market as supply-constrained.

The bank's bullish outlook is broadly consistent with Wall Street sentiment. LSEG data shows that 27 of the 40 analysts covering CoreWeave have a Buy or Strong Buy rating.

CoreWeave shares have gained 23% in 2026, although the stock has experienced significant volatility. Shares rose 39% during the first half of the year before falling 28% in July.

The company operates in the growing neocloud industry, which provides computing capacity to customers benefiting from the continued build-out of artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Neocloud providers have benefited from substantial spending by large technology companies and hyperscalers.

However, the industry's rapid expansion has also raised concerns about whether the companies can generate adequate returns on their investments.

Noah Weisberger, chief strategist at BCA Research, has taken a more cautious view of the neocloud industry.

He argues that companies in the sector could "destroy capital" by using borrowed money to expand what could eventually become a low-margin commodity service.

In a recent research report, Weisberger and colleague Dishaan Pandey analyzed six neocloud companies and found that their heavy capital spending could result in significantly lower returns on invested capital than hyperscalers achieve from their own infrastructure investments.

Weisberger said neocloud companies benefit from spending elsewhere in the technology supply chain, but they also have to invest heavily to generate that revenue.

AI Squared Management Ltd acquired a new stake in shares of CoreWeave Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV – Free Report) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the SEC. The firm acquired 69,661 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $6,934,000. CoreWeave makes up 3.7% of AI Squared Management Ltd’s holdings, making the stock its 12th biggest position.

Other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the company. Parallel Advisors LLC raised its position in shares of CoreWeave by 4.0% in the 1st quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 2,340 shares of the company’s stock worth $181,000 after acquiring an additional 91 shares in the last quarter. Pathway Wealth Management LLC lifted its stake in shares of CoreWeave by 2.9% during the 1st quarter. Pathway Wealth Management LLC now owns 3,593 shares of the company’s stock worth $278,000 after purchasing an additional 100 shares during the last quarter. Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV boosted its position in CoreWeave by 2.1% during the first quarter. Azzad Asset Management Inc. ADV now owns 5,020 shares of the company’s stock valued at $389,000 after purchasing an additional 104 shares in the last quarter. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of CoreWeave by 34.7% in the 4th quarter. Hazlett Burt & Watson Inc. now owns 462 shares of the company’s stock valued at $33,000 after buying an additional 119 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. lifted its position in CoreWeave by 45.8% during the fourth quarter. Cullen Frost Bankers Inc. now owns 385 shares of the company’s stock valued at $28,000 after acquiring an additional 121 shares during the last quarter.

Insider Activity In related news, major shareholder Magnetar Financial Llc sold 307,131 shares of CoreWeave stock in a transaction on Friday, August 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $108.75, for a total transaction of $33,400,496.25. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider directly owned 220,810 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $24,013,087.50. The trade was a 58.18% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Michael N. Intrator sold 278,560 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 30th. The shares were sold at an average price of $97.43, for a total transaction of $27,140,100.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer directly owned 3,138,612 shares in the company, valued at $305,794,967.16. This trade represents a 8.15% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders sold 9,541,014 shares of company stock worth $942,884,194 in the last 90 days. 24.20% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Analyst Ratings Changes A number of research analysts have issued reports on the stock. Sanford C. Bernstein raised their price target on shares of CoreWeave from $67.00 to $74.00 and gave the stock an “underperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 12th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. increased their price target on shares of CoreWeave from $105.00 to $110.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, August 11th. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and set a $250.00 price target on shares of CoreWeave in a research report on Wednesday, August 12th. Oppenheimer upped their price objective on shares of CoreWeave from $140.00 to $150.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Wednesday, April 29th. Finally, BNP Paribas Exane began coverage on shares of CoreWeave in a research report on Tuesday, June 2nd. They set an “outperform” rating and a $192.00 price target on the stock. Twenty-one analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, ten have assigned a Hold rating and three have assigned a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $141.57. Read Our Latest Stock Report on CRWV

Key Headlines Impacting CoreWeave Here are the key news stories impacting CoreWeave this week:

Positive Sentiment: CoreWeave announced a multiyear agreement with Hudson River Trading (HRT) to provide AI infrastructure for trading research and model development. The deal reportedly could be worth billions and will use NVIDIA’s next-generation Vera Rubin NVL72 platform and Spectrum-X networking, expanding CoreWeave’s exposure to financial-services customers and supporting demand visibility. Hudson River Trading agreement Positive Sentiment: Analysts continue to point to CoreWeave’s powerful growth: recent quarterly revenue rose 112.5% year over year to $2.58 billion, while its backlog reached more than $104 billion. A bullish research view cited improving margins, operating leverage and strong AI demand, although it acknowledged capital-intensity risks. CoreWeave growth and valuation analysis Neutral Sentiment: Short seller Martin Shkreli reportedly covered his CoreWeave position after holding it for roughly a week. The move removes one source of short-selling pressure but is not necessarily a bullish signal, particularly as the stock continued to face broader volatility. Martin Shkreli covers CoreWeave short Negative Sentiment: CEO Michael Intrator sold 307,692 shares for approximately $29.5 million at an average price of $95.72. The sales were made under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan, and he still owns a significant stake, but the size of the transaction weighed on sentiment and raised concerns about insider selling. CoreWeave CEO share sale Negative Sentiment: Bearish commentary argues that CoreWeave’s highly leveraged business model could struggle if AI infrastructure spending slows, capacity becomes excessive or interest rates remain elevated. With a debt-to-equity ratio above 5 and negative earnings, investors remain sensitive to funding costs, dilution risk and the company’s path to profitability. CoreWeave leverage and market risks Negative Sentiment: Northland Securities’ estimates show continued losses through 2027, including projected fiscal 2026 EPS of negative $5.50 and fiscal 2027 EPS of negative $3.18, although the firm expects a return to quarterly profitability in the fourth quarter of 2027. CoreWeave analyst estimates CoreWeave Stock Down 2.1% Shares of NASDAQ:CRWV opened at $87.85 on Friday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $89.99 and a 200-day simple moving average of $94.74. The company has a market capitalization of $40.31 billion, a PE ratio of -24.07 and a beta of 7.44. The company has a current ratio of 0.46, a quick ratio of 0.46 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 5.53. CoreWeave Inc. has a twelve month low of $60.55 and a twelve month high of $153.20.

CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Tuesday, August 11th. The company reported ($1.14) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($1.52) by $0.38. CoreWeave had a negative net margin of 25.41% and a negative return on equity of 47.95%. The business had revenue of $2.58 billion during the quarter. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted ($0.27) earnings per share. CoreWeave’s quarterly revenue was up 112.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts predict that CoreWeave Inc. will post -5.17 EPS for the current fiscal year.

CoreWeave Company Profile (Free Report)

CoreWeave is a U.S.-based provider of GPU-accelerated cloud infrastructure designed to support compute-intensive workloads such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, visual effects rendering and other high-performance computing applications. The company supplies access to large fleets of modern GPUs and complementary infrastructure that enable customers to train and deploy large models, run inference at scale, and process graphics-heavy workloads with low latency and high throughput.

CoreWeave’s product offering includes on-demand and dedicated GPU instances, bare-metal servers, private clusters and managed services tailored for enterprise and developer use.

Further Reading Five stocks we like better than CoreWeave Blueprint for a Boom: SEC Clears the Crypto Runway Ross Stores Just Flipped the Off-Price Retail Story After TJX’s Marmaxx Miss Advance Auto Parts Plunged, But Its Turnaround Is Still Working Is Palo Alto Networks Priced for Perfection Again as AI Security Demand Accelerates?

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Key Takeaways CoreWeave won a multi-year HRT deal to build an AI-driven research and model-development platform.HRT will use NVIDIA's Vera Rubin NVL72 and Spectrum-X Ethernet networking through CoreWeave.CoreWeave's growing financial-services reach supports enterprise AI demand and improved revenue visibility. CoreWeave Inc. (CRWV - Free Report) recently won a multi-year agreement with Hudson River Trading (HRT), a top-tier quantitative trading firm, to build its next-generation AI-driven research and model-development platform. The deployment will use NVIDIA's (NVDA - Free Report) Vera Rubin infrastructure, including the Vera Rubin NVL72 platform and Spectrum-X Ethernet networking. HRT’s decision to use CoreWeave's AI cloud platform suggests that specialized AI infrastructure can become an important component of next-generation quantitative research.

A notable aspect of the agreement is HRT’s planned use of NVIDIA Vera Rubin infrastructure. NVIDIA designed the Rubin platform for the next generation of large-scale AI workloads, particularly reasoning, inference and agentic AI. The Vera Rubin NVL72 combines 72 Rubin GPUs with 36 Vera CPUs and uses NVIDIA's latest high-bandwidth interconnect technologies. CoreWeave has already established an early-mover position with the platform. In June, the company announced that it had completed the industry's first bring-up and validation of Vera Rubin NVL72. CRWV simplifies access to NVDA’s latest architectures by handling the infrastructure complexity, allowing it to monetize each new generation of NVIDIA hardware.

The HRT agreement also broadens CoreWeave's exposure to financial services. Quantitative trading firms such as Jane Street, IMC and Flow Traders have already adopted CoreWeave's infrastructure, underscoring the potential for a broader financial-services customer base. Despite these positive implications, the agreement does not eliminate CoreWeave’s challenges. Competition remains a concern. Hyperscalers such as Microsoft Azure (MSFT - Free Report) and other specialized providers like Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS - Free Report) are also investing heavily in advanced AI infrastructure. Nonetheless, HRT’s multi-year deal highlights CoreWeave’s growing enterprise AI demand, specialized infrastructure advantage and improved revenue visibility.

Can CRWV Maintain Its Edge Amid Fierce Rivalry?Like CRWV, NBIS continues to deepen ties with NVDA. In June, it announced plans to invest approximately £1.7 billion in expanding AI compute capacity across the U.K. The investment includes three new deployments of advanced NVIDIA-powered infrastructure. Nebius launched its first U.K. deployment of NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra infrastructure in late 2025. Building on that foundation, it now plans to establish three additional sites across the U.K., deploying the latest generations of NVIDIA’s full-stack AI factory platform technology. When fully operational in 2027, these deployments are expected to deliver 65 MW of AI computing capacity. To strengthen its position in the rapidly evolving AI cloud market, NBIS inked an agreement to acquire Eigen AI in May.

MSFT capitalizes on the momentum of the AI business and Copilot adoption, alongside the expansion of Azure cloud infrastructure. In July, Microsoft launched MAI-Cyber-1-Flash, its first cybersecurity-specialized AI model, alongside a new agentic security platform called Project Perception, with the company claiming the model — when combined with OpenAI's GPT-5.4 inside its MDASH vulnerability management harness — delivers 96% on the CyberGym benchmark at 50% of the cost of its current MDASH configuration. Multi-model flexibility, paired with continued access to OpenAI's frontier models under an IP arrangement extending to 2032, allows customers to optimize cost and performance while keeping Microsoft central to their AI infrastructure decisions.

CRWV’s Price Performance, Valuations and EstimatesShares of CoreWeave have gained 25.3% year to date against the Internet Software industry’s fall of 5.6%.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

In terms of Price/Book, CRWV’s shares are trading at 8X, higher than the Internet Software Services industry’s 4.35X.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CRWV’s earnings for the current year has been revised downward over the past 60 days.

Image Source: Zacks Investment Research

CRWV currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

David Tepper‘s latest portfolio update suggests the billionaire hedge fund manager is expanding his AI playbook beyond the industry’s familiar names.

While Appaloosa Management increased stakes in Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (NYSE:TSM), Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) during the second quarter, its newest AI-related position was cloud infrastructure provider CoreWeave, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV), underscoring a growing focus on the companies powering artificial intelligence rather than just building it.

David Tepper Adds CoreWeave to Growing AI PortfolioAccording to Appaloosa Management’s latest Form 13F, Tepper initiated a new position in CoreWeave worth about $107.3 million during the second quarter. The fund also established a new stake in Broadcom Inc. (NASDAQ:AVGO), another key supplier to AI infrastructure, while increasing existing holdings in Nvidia, TSMC, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META).

The filing shows Tepper’s AI exposure extends well beyond chip designers. CoreWeave, one of the largest providers of GPU cloud infrastructure for AI workloads, joins a portfolio that already includes semiconductor leaders, hyperscale cloud beneficiaries and companies supporting the computing backbone behind generative AI.

It’s worth noting that 13F filings are a snapshot of holdings as of June 30, 2026, and don’t reflect any portfolio changes Appaloosa may have made after the quarter ended.

Read Next

Tepper Rebalanced Within AI as He Trimmed Other Tech HoldingsThe new CoreWeave investment came alongside several notable portfolio adjustments. Appaloosa reduced its stakes in Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) and Micron Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ:MU), while exiting positions in Corning Inc (NYSE:GLW), Sandisk Corp (NASDAQ:SNDK) and Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) altogether.

The filing doesn’t explain Tepper’s investment rationale, and 13Fs don’t reveal when trades were made during the quarter or whether some positions serve as hedges. However, the disclosed holdings show capital moving toward a concentrated group of AI infrastructure leaders while several legacy technology positions were reduced or eliminated.

Outside technology, Tepper also initiated new positions in Boeing Co (NYSE:BA), American Airlines Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAL) and The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (NASDAQ:GT), while exiting holdings including Lyft, Inc. (NASDAQ:LYFT), JD.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:JD), PDD Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:PDD), RTX Corp (NYSE:RTX), UnitedHealth Group Inc (NYSE:UNH) and Ball Corp (NYSE:BALL).

The number of disclosed holdings fell from 31 to 27 even as the reported portfolio value increased to approximately $7.7 billion from $5.9 billion, reflecting a more concentrated portfolio.

What Investors Should Watch NextCoreWeave’s addition is notable not because it is Appaloosa’s largest new position, but because it broadens Tepper’s exposure to a critical layer of the AI ecosystem. Investors should watch whether future filings show Appaloosa building on that position or whether the fund continues consolidating capital around companies tied to AI computing infrastructure as enterprise demand for AI capacity grows.

Read Next

Photo: PJ McDonnell / Shutterstock

© 2026 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Michael N. Intrator, the CEO and president of CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV -0.97%), reported the sale of 307,692 shares of Class A Common Stock on August 11, according to a recent SEC Form 4 filing.

Transaction summaryMetricValueTransaction value$27.4 millionShares sold (total)307,692Shares sold (directly)200,000Shares sold (indirectly)107,692Post-transaction shares (directly held)1,876,815Transaction value based on SEC Form 4 weighted average sale price ($89.18); post-transaction value based on the August 11 market close ($90.32).

Key questionsWhat is the context for the pricing and timing of this disposition?
Shares were sold at a weighted-average price of $89.18 per share on a date when the company's one-year total return was down by about 30%. As of the August 12, 2026 market close, the stock was priced at $107.73, so it's since recovered a fair amount of losses.What remaining equity exposure does the CEO maintain in the company?
Following this transaction, Michael N. Intrator maintains roughly 1.9 million directly held shares and substantial derivative holdings of 21.9 million direct and 30 million indirect securities.Who are the indirect beneficial owners associated with the remaining holdings?
Indirect equity exposure remains through derivative securities held by the reporting person's spouse, the PMI 2024 F&F GRAT, the Intrator Family GST-Exempt Trust, and the Intrator Family Trust.Company OverviewMetricValueShare Price (as of market close 2026-08-12)$107.73Market Capitalization$58.8 billionRevenue (TTM)$6.2 billionNet Income (TTM)-$1.6 billionCompany SnapshotCoreWeave operates a specialized cloud computing platform providing high-performance GPU and CPU compute resources, storage solutions, advanced networking capabilities, and fully managed services designed to support generative AI and intensive compute workloads for large enterprises.The company generates revenue through flexible consumption-based pricing models, offering clients the choice between virtual servers and bare-metal infrastructure solutions tailored to their computational requirements.CoreWeave serves large enterprises and organizations requiring substantial computational capacity for generative AI applications, machine learning workloads, and data-intensive processing operations.CoreWeave is a specialized infrastructure provider serving the high-growth generative AI market, with $6.2 billion in TTM revenue and a market capitalization of $58.8 billion. The company's competitive positioning centers on delivering purpose-built GPU and CPU infrastructure optimized for AI workloads, addressing the critical infrastructure gap created by surging demand for generative AI capabilities among enterprise customers. Despite current net losses of $1.6 billion TTM, CoreWeave's substantial revenue base and market valuation reflect investor confidence in the structural growth of AI infrastructure demand.

What this transaction means for investorsIntrator sold about 308,000 shares but still holds tens of millions more through direct stock, options, and family trusts, so this trim, priced below where the stock closed, is a sliver of a co-founder's stake rather than a retreat from it. The sale barely registers against the position he keeps.

What actually matters is the machine he's built and how it's paid for. CoreWeave grew second-quarter revenue 112% to $2.6 billion, doubled adjusted EBITDA to $1.5 billion, and sits on a contracted backlog above $100 billion, the kind of demand that led management to raise full-year guidance again. Alongside the latest earnings report, Intrator said the company "reached an important inflection point this quarter as our scale began to translate into expanding operating leverage." The other side of that growth is roughly $35 billion in debt, taken on to buy Nvidia chips and build the data centers that revenue runs through, so CoreWeave is racing to convert breakneck expansion into profits before borrowing costs catch up. That race is key to the investment thesis now. Bond markets recently priced real odds of trouble here, and this quarter pushed back on them, but a company still losing money on a $35 billion debt load lives or dies by whether the backlog keeps converting.

Jonathan Ponciano has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Sachin Jain, the chief operating officer of the firm, reported a sale of 13,608 shares of CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV -0.97%) on August 10, according to an SEC Form 4 filing.

Transaction summaryMetricValueTransaction value$1.3 millionShares sold13,608Post-transaction shares (directly held)147,785Post-transaction value$13.03 millionTransaction value based on SEC Form 4 weighted average sale price ($92.09); post-transaction value based on the August 10 market close ($88.19).

Key questionsWhat were the primary drivers behind this disposal?
The transaction was primarily conducted to meet tax liabilities incurred from the vesting of restricted stock units. This suggests the sale was part of the company's structured compensation plan rather than a discretionary trading decision by the executive based on market conditions.How does this impact the insider's total exposure to the company?
Despite the 8% reduction in direct Class A Common Stock holdings, Jain maintains significant equity alignment with 148,000 shares and 270,000 derivative securities. This remaining stake indicates a continued interest in the firm's operational performance and long-term valuation.What is the context of the stock's recent performance?
The transaction was executed at $92.09 per share, occurring in a period where CoreWeave shares have seen a steep decline over the 12-month period ending on the August 10 transaction date.Company OverviewMetricValueShare Price (as of market close 2026-08-10)$88.19Market Capitalization$50 billionRevenue (TTM)$6.2 billionNet Income (TTM)-$1.6 billionCompany SnapshotCoreWeave provides a specialized cloud computing platform delivering high-performance GPU and CPU compute resources, storage solutions, advanced networking capabilities, and fully managed services designed to support generative AI and intensive compute workloads for enterprise clients.The company generates revenue through a consumption-based cloud services model, offering flexible virtual servers and bare-metal infrastructure options that enable enterprises to scale compute resources according to their specific workload requirements.CoreWeave primarily serves large enterprises and organizations requiring substantial computational capacity for generative AI applications, machine learning workloads, and data-intensive operations across multiple industry verticals.CoreWeave operates as a specialized infrastructure-as-a-service provider focused on the high-performance computing segment, with a market capitalization of $50 billion and TTM revenue of $6.2 billion. The company's competitive positioning centers on delivering optimized GPU and CPU infrastructure specifically architected for generative AI workloads, addressing the growing demand from enterprises seeking dedicated, high-performance alternatives to general-purpose cloud providers. Despite current net losses of $1.6 billion TTM, CoreWeave's substantial revenue base and market valuation reflect investor confidence in the secular growth trajectory of AI infrastructure demand.

What this transaction means for investorsOne day before CoreWeave told investors how the second quarter went, its operating chief exercised stock options and sold a portion to cover the tax. Jain kept the vast majority of his holdings, so the move itself is unremarkable, but CoreWeave is in the middle of proving itself after successfully pivoting from an Ethereum crypto-mining firm to a GPU infrastructure provider for artificial intelligence, which now sees the firm racing to fill orders already on the books.

That race is going well, but carries some risk. CoreWeave grew quarterly revenue 112% to $2.6 billion against a backlog that now tops $100 billion, but a large share of that backlog traces to a handful of enormous customers, with Microsoft and OpenAI among the biggest. So the operation Jain oversees is scaling well while leaning on a short list of buyers. Still, management raised guidance and keeps signing new commitments, which widens that base over time.

Jonathan Ponciano has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Wall Street treats GPUs like disposable electronics. CoreWeave (CRWV -1.10%) is running them like long-duration infrastructure.

What's the deal with this stock? CoreWeave is borrowing tens of billions of dollars to buy Nvidia (NVDA +0.10%) chips and rent them to AI software builders. The bear case against the stock is simple: Graphics chips age quickly. If Nvidia launches faster processors every 12 months, three-year-old chips should become useless, trapping CoreWeave in a cycle of taking on new debt just to replace dying hardware.

That theory has a flaw. The real-world contract data shows older chips are not dying.

Fully depreciated on paper. Fully rented in reality. Image source: The Motley Fool.

Wall Street thinks GPUs decay like iPhones. The contracts say otherwise. On its Q2 2026 earnings call, CoreWeave disclosed a multi-year renewal on a cluster of Nvidia A100 GPUs extending into 2029. Nvidia introduced the A100 in 2020. That means an architecture introduced in 2020 can still generate contracted cash flow nearly a decade later.

Management explicitly laid out the mechanism: As earlier-generation fleets finish their initial contracts, they deliver returns in subsequent years because much of the underlying capital burden has already been paid down. Wall Street models assumed older GPUs would be retired or deeply discounted. Instead, they are staying online at attractive prices.

Older chips do not need to win benchmarks to make money Scarcity explains part of this demand. Power connections take 18 to 24 months to build, so software teams rent whatever active compute is available today. But the longer-term mechanism is workload cascading.

The newest chips naturally get the jobs where speed matters most. Older chips can move down the stack to fine-tuning, inference, coding workloads, and smaller models where customers care more about cost than benchmark leadership.

As the market matures, compute demand splits by cost and task:

Frontier pre-training: Uses top-tier processors like Blackwell because raw speed dictates training time.

Fine-tuning and domain adaptation: Moves to previous-generation chips like the H100, where customers can trade some speed for a lower cost.

Inference and everyday applications: Operates on older architectures like the A100.

An older GPU does not need to beat a new chip on raw speed. It only needs to be cheap and reliable enough for tasks that do not justify top-tier pricing.

The second lease is where the real economics live The economics of a GPU cluster change after its initial contract. During the first lease (typically three to five years), customer payments recover a substantial portion of the original hardware cost and service the debt used to buy it. By the time that lease expires, the unrecovered capital burden sitting on those servers drops significantly.

Second and third leases operate on a different financial equation. Power, facility rent, and maintenance still cost money. But the heavy debt service and capital recovery are largely finished. Every dollar of revenue from a renewal generates higher incremental returns on already-recovered capital.

That creates an asset-management flywheel: The initial contract carries most of the capital burden. The extension monetizes an asset whose original investment has already been substantially recovered.

Lenders are now betting on what happens after year three Debt markets are beginning to price in this residual value. Historically, lenders matched GPU debt maturities directly to the length of the underlying customer contract. CoreWeave's $2.6 billion DDTL 5.5 debt facility broke that pattern. The debt carries a five-year maturity, but the customer contracts backing it average only three years.

That gap matters. Lenders are accepting exposure beyond the initial customer lock-in, which suggests they are increasingly comfortable underwriting some residual economic value after the first contract ends.

Nvidia is building a broader framework around this concept. It partnered with a consortium of six major asset managers and banks (Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR) to mobilize over $500 billion of private capital, explicitly aiming to turn AI compute into a recognized investable asset class. Reporting indicates Nvidia may even provide limited residual-value support on certain debt structures. When equipment suppliers and private credit markets back residual value, GPU compute stops looking like disposable tech hardware and starts looking more like financed infrastructure.

Verdict: The asset machine is working, but leverage is the price of admission CoreWeave is making a clear trade-off. It is taking on heavy debt and significant near-term interest drag to build a massive pool of infrastructure. That strategy fails if older GPUs lose their rental value quickly.

The A100 extension shows that older GPUs can remain economically useful far longer than the bear case assumes. CoreWeave's real advantage is not just getting new Nvidia chips first. It is extracting cash from second and subsequent contracts on hardware the market assumed would be obsolete.

Watch what happens as the first H100 contracts mature and how cheaply CoreWeave can continue financing project-level infrastructure. If older fleets keep renewing at attractive economics while SPV financing remains cheap, the residual-value thesis gets stronger.

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SummaryCoreWeave delivered a standout Q2, with revenue up 112% YoY to $2.6B and backlog surging to $104.2B.Despite robust demand and raised guidance, CRWV's capital intensity and weak return-on-capital constrain its investment appeal.Adjusted EBITDA margin hit 59%, but adjusted operating margin was just 5%, with D&A of $1.39B and CapEx projected at $35–39B for 2026.I rate CoreWeave a Hold; demand and operational progress are strong, but sustainable, attractive returns remain unproven.NicoElNino/iStock via Getty Images

CoreWeave (CRWV) (CRWV:CA) reported Q2 earnings yesterday, and in my view, this was probably the most important quarter the company has delivered since going public. What caught my attention is that CoreWeave finally showed the

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CoreWeave, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV) stock jumped in Wednesday’s premarket session as investors focused on stronger AI compute pricing, higher revenue guidance and continued demand for large-scale AI infrastructure.

The company said it raised prices by about 25% across AI compute offerings in July to reflect strong demand and higher component costs, including more expensive GPUs.

Management also said demand for NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin platform remains "enormous," while contribution margins on new deals are rising by 5 to 10 percentage points.

CoreWeave lifted its full-year 2026 revenue forecast to $12.4 billion to $13.2 billion and guided third-quarter revenue to $3.45 billion to $3.6 billion.

Backlog Signals Strong AI DemandJefferies analyst Brent Thill said CoreWeave remains a key AI infrastructure vendor as backlog growth points to healthy demand.

Thill told CNBC that CoreWeave ended the quarter with about $99 billion in backlog and moved closer to $130 billion after signing additional business early in the current quarter.

He said that growth shows demand remains strong and that the broader AI trade remains intact as hyperscalers keep increasing capital spending.

Profitability Remains A Key Watch PointHe said CoreWeave benefits from a supply-constrained environment where customers continue to seek more capacity. However, he said investors still need more clarity on whether the company can become profitable and evolve over the next three years into a software-enabled cloud platform.

Thill said several metrics looked slightly above consensus, but he described the quarter as stable rather than a blowout. He also said CoreWeave must manage rising infrastructure costs, generate proper returns after financing costs and address concerns about insider selling.

Top ETF ExposureSignificance: Because CRWV carries such a heavy weight in these funds, any significant inflows or outflows for these ETFs will likely force automatic buying or selling of the stock.

Price ActionCRWV Stock Price Activity: CoreWeave shares were trading higher by 17.36% at $106.00 during premarket trading on Wednesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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CoreWeave, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV) will release its second quarter earnings report after the closing bell on Tuesday, Aug. 11.

Analysts expect the Livingston, New Jersey-based company to report a quarterly loss of $1.45 per share, versus a loss of 60 cents per share in the year-ago period. The consensus estimate for CoreWeave’s quarterly revenue is $2.56 billion. It reported $1.21 billion last year, according to Benzinga Pro.

On Aug. 5, CoreWeave announced a multi-year agreement with Solidigm for priority access to enterprise SSD capacity.

CoreWeave shares fell 2.7% to close at $88.19 on Monday.

Benzinga readers can access the latest analyst ratings on the Analyst Stock Ratings page. Readers can sort by stock ticker, company name, analyst firm, rating change or other variables.

Let’s have a look at how Benzinga’s most-accurate analysts have rated the company in the recent period.

Citigroup analyst Tyler Radke maintained a Buy rating and cut the price target from $158 to $142 on Aug. 5, 2026. This analyst has an accuracy rate of 68%. Rosenblatt analyst John McPeake maintained a Buy rating with a price target of $250 on Aug. 5, 2026. This analyst has an accuracy rate of 50%. Piper Sandler analyst James Fish initiated coverage on the stock with an Overweight rating and a price target of $151 on Aug. 3, 2026. This analyst has an accuracy rate of 70%. Truist Securities analyst Arvind Ramnani upgraded the stock from Hold to Buy and cut the price target from $131 to $126 on July 22, 2026. This analyst has an accuracy rate of 51%. Baird analyst Rob Oliver initiated coverage on the stock with an Outperform rating and a price target of $100 on July 22, 2026. This analyst has an accuracy rate of 56%. Considering buying CRWV stock? Here’s what analysts think:

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