Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) Shares Up 11.8% – Time to Buy?

Applied Digital Co. (NASDAQ:APLD) shares traded up 11.8% on Friday . The company traded as high as $12.48 and last traded at $11.38. 33,883,226 shares were traded during trading, an increase of 35% from the average session volume of 25,027,541 shares. The stock had previously closed at $10.18.

Analyst Ratings Changes

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

Applied Digital Price Performance

The stock has a market cap of $2.37 billion, a PE ratio of -6.16 and a beta of 4.77. The company has a quick ratio of 0.77, a current ratio of 0.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.22. The company’s fifty day moving average is $8.48 and its 200 day moving average is $7.47.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, January 14th. The company reported ($0.06) EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates 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 business had revenue of $63.87 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $62.41 million. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted ($0.05) EPS. The business’s revenue for the quarter was up 51.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Applied Digital Co. will post -0.96 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

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

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Applied Digital

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in APLD. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Applied Digital by 36.5% in the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 899,293 shares of the company’s stock worth $7,419,000 after acquiring an additional 240,554 shares in the last quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd acquired a new position in shares of Applied Digital in the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $545,000. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC boosted its stake in shares of Applied Digital by 37.6% during the 4th quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 1,002,090 shares of the company’s stock valued at $7,656,000 after buying an additional 273,666 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC grew its position in shares of Applied Digital by 736.8% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 486,577 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,014,000 after buying an additional 428,428 shares in the last quarter. Finally, SG Americas Securities LLC increased its stake in shares of Applied Digital by 414.5% in the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 265,792 shares of the company’s stock worth $2,031,000 after buying an additional 214,133 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 65.67% of the company’s stock.

Applied Digital Company Profile

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.