Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) Shares Up 7.9% – Here’s What Happened

Applied Digital Co. (NASDAQ:APLD)’s share price shot up 7.9% on Tuesday . The company traded as high as $9.92 and last traded at $9.83. 13,601,290 shares were traded during mid-day trading, a decline of 43% from the average session volume of 23,763,803 shares. The stock had previously closed at $9.11.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages have weighed in on APLD. Northland Securities upped their price objective on shares of Applied Digital from $12.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, February 4th. Compass Point assumed coverage on shares of Applied Digital in a research report on Tuesday, January 28th. They issued a “buy” rating and a $10.00 price objective for the company. Cantor Fitzgerald cut their target price on shares of Applied Digital from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and set a $11.00 target price on shares of Applied Digital in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. Finally, HC Wainwright boosted their target price on shares of Applied Digital from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. Nine research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $12.11.

Applied Digital Stock Performance

The company has a market cap of $2.15 billion, a PE ratio of -5.57 and a beta of 4.77. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.22, a quick ratio of 0.77 and a current ratio of 0.77. The firm’s 50 day moving average is $8.39 and its 200-day moving average is $7.35.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, January 14th. The company reported ($0.06) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.14) by $0.08. Applied Digital had a negative net margin of 127.86% and a negative return on equity of 117.67%. The company had revenue of $63.87 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $62.41 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($0.05) EPS. Applied Digital’s revenue was up 51.3% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts anticipate that Applied Digital Co. will post -0.96 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Activity at Applied Digital

In other news, CEO Wes Cummins sold 200,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.20, for a total value of $1,840,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 3,875,955 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $35,658,786. This represents a 4.91 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Director Richard N. Nottenburg sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $8.85, for a total transaction of $177,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 342,923 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,034,868.55. This trade represents a 5.51 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 270,000 shares of company stock valued at $2,477,000. Corporate insiders own 11.81% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Applied Digital

Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. GTS Securities LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Applied Digital in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $196,000. Two Seas Capital LP acquired a new position in shares of Applied Digital in the 4th quarter worth approximately $5,062,000. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Applied Digital by 271.8% in the 4th quarter. UBS AM a distinct business unit of UBS ASSET MANAGEMENT AMERICAS LLC now owns 343,260 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,623,000 after acquiring an additional 250,944 shares during the last quarter. Vennlight Capital Management LP acquired a new position in shares of Applied Digital in the 4th quarter worth approximately $2,786,000. Finally, Vident Advisory LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Applied Digital by 34.4% in the 4th quarter. Vident Advisory LLC now owns 942,646 shares of the company’s stock worth $7,202,000 after acquiring an additional 241,123 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 65.67% of the company’s stock.

About Applied Digital

Applied Digital Corporation designs, develops, and operates datacenters in North America. Its datacenters provide digital infrastructure solutions to the high-performance computing industry. The company also provides artificial intelligence cloud services, high performance computing datacenter hosting, and crypto datacenter hosting services.