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Luke Kawa

CoreWeave delivers top- and bottom-line beat in Q2

CoreWeave gave back all of the day’s big gains, and then some, after-hours even as the AI cloud company delivered better-than-expected second-quarter results.

  • Revenue: $1.21 billion (estimated $1.08 billion, guidance of $1.06 billion to $1.1 billion).

  • Adjusted operating income: $199.8 million (estimated $162.75 million, guidance of $140 million to $170 million)

The company also saw its massive backlog swell to $30.1 billion from $25.9 billion at the end of Q1.

Still, shares were down 7.2% after the report. The stock had climbed 6.4% during the regular session.

“We are scaling rapidly as we look to meet the unprecedented demand for AI,” said cofounder, chairman, and CEO Michael Intrator. “Our purpose-built AI cloud platform continues to set new benchmarks for performance and scalability including becoming the first company to offer the complete Blackwell GPU portfolio at scale, making CoreWeave the platform of choice for the world’s most advanced AI workloads and AI pioneers.”

CoreWeave’s earnings report promises to be a catalyst for the stock beyond the actual numbers: the lockup period for 84% of its shares expires at the close of trading two days after this announcement (that is, August 14).

The stock is up more than 250% from its IPO through Tuesday’s close, and the low float constraining supply for the AI darling has been a contributor to its stellar run.

(Nvidia has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of this performance, as its position in CoreWeave stock is up more than $2.5 billion from the end of Q1 through today.)

Beyond the potential for some profit-taking by large early holders, the cost of borrowing CoreWeave to sell short is also likely to decline as a huge chunk of the shares becomes unlocked.

We’ll stay tuned for any color on the conference call surrounding CoreWeave’s all-stock deal to buy Core Scientific amid reports that major shareholders of the latter are unhappy with the terms of the arrangement.

Shares of CoreWeave are down about 10% since the deal was announced in early July.

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IREN sinks after announcing share offering as part of refinancing plan

Bitcoin miner turned data center company IREN tumbled in postmarket trading on Monday, and remains mired in the red ahead of the open on Tuesday, after announcing plans to sell shares as part of a plan to refinance its debt.

Management is proceeding with a registered direct offering of shares to a limited number of potential buyers, and using those funds to repurchase up to about $1.5 billion in convertible notes due in 2029 and 2030 with coupons of 3.5% and 3.25%, respectively.

How many shares the company ultimately offers will be governed by how many of these convertible note holders are willing to sell.

Separately, IREN is also issuing $2 billion in new convertible senior notes in a private offering to qualified institutional buyers, split between 2032 and 2033 maturities.

Finalized terms, including the interest rate and initial conversion rate of the notes, are yet to be announced, but Bloomberg reports — citing people familiar with the matter — that the company is aiming for the 2032 note to carry a coupon of 0% to 0.25% and for the coupon on the 2033 note to be between 0.5% and 1%. Both notes are expected to have conversion premiums of 25% to 30%.

Meeting the demand for AI compute and power requires that IREN, one of the so-called neoclouds, invests in the necessary infrastructure to boost its capacity. In November, the company booked a near $10-billion deal with Microsoft to provide access to computing capacity at a data center campus in Texas.

IREN was recently added to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives’ list of the 30 biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom.

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Credo soars on record Q2 results fueled by hyperscaler demand

Credo Technology Group surged more than 18% in premarket trading on Tuesday after the cable solutions provider, which makes many products used in AI data centers, delivered Q2 results that blew past Wall Street’s expectations.

Revenue jumped 272.1% year-over-year to $268 million, topping the ~$235 million estimate, while adjusted EPS of $0.67 easily beat the $0.49 forecast compiled by Bloomberg. Credo’s outlook was also strong, with the company expecting Q3 revenue to come in between $335 million and $345 million, implying 27% quarter-on-quarter growth at the midpoint. Analysts expected Q3 sales of $247.5 million.

CEO Bill Brennan called it the strongest quarterly results in Credo’s history, which “reflect the continued build-out of the world’s largest AI training and inference clusters.” 

The results are so strong that they’re not only buoying shares of Credo, but also fueling a rally in Astera Labs, which also provides high-speed connectivity solutions, ahead of the open.

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Traders are pricing in a big swing in AI chip market share to Broadcom from Nvidia

The story within the AI trade lately has been: Google’s a winner, and OpenAI is a... well, to be kind, non-winner.

Companies closely tied to the former, like Broadcom, which codesigns the TPUs that Gemini 3 was trained on, have benefited from their relationship with the hyperscaling search giant. Conversely, Nvidia, which sells to both Google and OpenAI but is besieged with worries about how custom chips might impact its AI market share (and profitability), has been selling off.

“NVDA stock is now trading at its widest ever ~40% discount to AVGO’s current 42x forward PE versus historical -10%/+7% discount/premium over the past 1/2 yrs, respectively,” Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya wrote. “In other words, consensus has already implicitly shifted at least 10+ points of (2H26E/27E) AI market share towards AVGO, conceptually.”

The abrupt shift in valuation amid this divergent price action is reversing course on Monday: Nvidia’s up about 1.5% as of 10:55 a.m. ET, while Broadcom is off 2.6%.

Air taxi companies are in the red as Goldman initiates coverage on Archer, Joby, and Beta

Goldman Sachs initiated coverage of the major US air taxi companies on Monday, including Joby Aviation, Archer Aviation, and Beta Technologies. All three are trading down as the bank’s first notes hit investor inboxes.

Though Joby “appears to be in pole position” on certification, analyst Anthony Valentini gave the stock a “sell” rating and a $10 price target — 30% below the value of Joby’s stock at Friday’s close. Valentini wrote that it’s unclear where competitors stand in the process.

Goldman gave Archer a “neutral” rating and an $11 price target, highlighting the company’s ability to cut spending. Beta Technologies, which went public last month, received a “buy” rating and a $47 price target.

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