Shares of artificial intelligence (AI) "neocloud" CoreWeave (CRWV 2.56%) rocketed higher another 19.2% on Monday as of 12:26 p.m. ET.
The big move follows a big jump last Friday, two days after CoreWeave reported impressive first-quarter results, and Nvidia disclosed that it had increased its stake in the company.
Today's move higher appears to be spurred on by two factors. One, a Wall Street analyst more than doubled his price target on the stock. Second, CoreWeave is tapping the debt markets again to fund its aggressive build-out -- and that debt offering was very oversubscribed.
NASDAQ: CRWV
Key Data Points
CoreWeave making moves
This morning, Citigroup analyst Tyler Radke raised his price target on CoreWeave from $43 all the way to $94, but kept his "neutral" rating on shares. This was one of those analyst upgrades that seems a bit late to the party. Obviously, Radke had been neutral on the stock at a much lower price, but given the big jump in shares last week, the analyst is readjusting after the fact.
Radke wrote in his note:
Shares have gone vertical ... While we'd argue a portion of the rerating is justified, given strong Azure/hyperscaler numbers and capex, we reiterate our Neutral/High Risk rating, as we'd like to see more progress on profitability and more customer diversification.
CoreWeave's growth also appears set to accelerate given the second bit of news today, although also perhaps at the expense of near-term profits, as Radke mentioned. That's because the company sought another $1.5 billion of debt in order to finance its AI data center build-out, but saw such strong investor interest that it upsized the offering to $2 billion of five-year notes.
While the 9.25% coupon rate on the notes is pretty high and suggests a fair amount of risk, the massive investor interest appears to be spurring more bullishness among equity investors, too.
Image source: Getty Images.
Risks remain, but so does upside
It appears the bullishness on Nvidia-powered AI infrastructure is overwhelming some of the concerns about CoreWeave at the moment, with the main concerns being the heavy use of debt to build out infrastructure; its somewhat circular relationship with Nvidia, who is both a supplier and customer; and its high concentration of customers among just a few cloud and AI giants.
That was why Radke and other analysts have been somewhat skeptical of CoreWeave's story. It's a newish business model in the AI era, so investors should expect more big swings on day-to-day news items, both to the upside and downside.
