Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) Shares Gap Up – Still a Buy?

Applied Digital Co. (NASDAQ:APLD) shares gapped up before the market opened on Monday . The stock had previously closed at $9.85, but opened at $10.37. Applied Digital shares last traded at $10.39, with a volume of 3,286,730 shares trading hands.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

A number of brokerages recently commented on APLD. Roth Mkm reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $10.00 price target on shares of Applied Digital in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Craig Hallum lifted their target price on shares of Applied Digital from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Needham & Company LLC reissued a “buy” rating and issued a $11.00 price target on shares of Applied Digital in a research note on Friday, November 1st. HC Wainwright raised their price objective on shares of Applied Digital from $5.00 to $10.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 16th. Finally, Lake Street Capital upped their target price on Applied Digital from $7.00 to $11.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, October 10th. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $10.50.

Applied Digital Stock Down 8.8 %

The firm has a fifty day moving average of $7.74 and a 200 day moving average of $5.89. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.22 and a quick ratio of 0.22.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, October 9th. The company reported ($0.15) earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.28) by $0.13. The company had revenue of $60.70 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $54.85 million. Applied Digital had a negative return on equity of 88.87% and a negative net margin of 74.95%. Applied Digital’s quarterly revenue was up 67.2% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned ($0.10) earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts expect that Applied Digital Co. will post -0.4 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity at Applied Digital

In other Applied Digital news, Director Douglas S. Miller sold 10,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, October 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $8.01, for a total transaction of $80,100.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 208,506 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,670,133.06. This represents a 4.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, Director Richard N. Nottenburg sold 80,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Monday, October 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.37, for a total transaction of $589,600.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now directly owns 433,686 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,196,265.82. This represents a 15.57 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 119,369 shares of company stock valued at $870,161. 11.81% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in APLD. Hood River Capital Management LLC grew its position in shares of Applied Digital by 8.7% during the second quarter. Hood River Capital Management LLC now owns 9,596,231 shares of the company’s stock worth $57,098,000 after acquiring an additional 771,699 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in Applied Digital by 70.2% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 6,176,073 shares of the company’s stock worth $26,434,000 after acquiring an additional 2,547,485 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Applied Digital by 48.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,061,160 shares of the company’s stock worth $25,258,000 after purchasing an additional 1,002,862 shares in the last quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp grew its stake in shares of Applied Digital by 18.3% during the 2nd quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 2,869,980 shares of the company’s stock worth $17,077,000 after purchasing an additional 443,699 shares during the period. Finally, State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Applied Digital by 14.0% in the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,337,267 shares of the company’s stock valued at $19,282,000 after purchasing an additional 286,852 shares during the period. 65.67% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

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.