Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) Trading 7.8% Higher – Should You Buy?

Applied Digital Co. (NASDAQ:APLD) shares shot up 7.8% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $7.43 and last traded at $7.21. 9,880,864 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 60% from the average session volume of 24,473,090 shares. The stock had previously closed at $6.69.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

APLD has been the subject of several recent research reports. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $11.00 price objective on shares of Applied Digital in a research report on Wednesday, January 15th. Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their price target on shares of Applied Digital from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, January 15th. Compass Point initiated coverage on shares of Applied Digital in a report on Tuesday. They issued a “buy” rating and a $10.00 price target on the stock. Lake Street Capital upped their price objective on shares of Applied Digital from $7.00 to $11.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Finally, Craig Hallum raised their target price on Applied Digital from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to data from MarketBeat, Applied Digital currently has an average rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $11.13.

Applied Digital Trading Up 10.3 %

The stock’s 50 day moving average is $8.89 and its 200-day moving average is $7.09. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.22, a current ratio of 0.77 and a quick ratio of 0.77. The company has a market capitalization of $1.65 billion, a P/E ratio of -4.27 and a beta of 4.78.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) last released 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. The company had revenue of $63.87 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $62.41 million. Applied Digital had a negative return on equity of 117.67% and a negative net margin of 127.86%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 51.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter last year, the business posted ($0.05) EPS. As a group, equities research analysts anticipate that Applied Digital Co. will post -0.8 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, CEO Wes Cummins sold 200,000 shares of Applied Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.20, for a total transaction of $1,840,000.00. Following the completion of the transaction, 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 ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Richard N. Nottenburg sold 19,369 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, November 7th. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.51, for a total value of $145,461.19. Following the completion of the sale, the director now owns 384,317 shares in the company, valued at $2,886,220.67. The trade was a 4.80 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last 90 days, insiders have sold 289,369 shares of company stock worth $2,622,461. Corporate insiders own 11.81% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in APLD. Van ECK Associates Corp increased its holdings in shares of Applied Digital by 113.8% during the fourth quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 4,404,313 shares of the company’s stock valued at $33,649,000 after acquiring an additional 2,344,572 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its position in Applied Digital by 48.7% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,061,160 shares of the company’s stock valued at $25,258,000 after purchasing an additional 1,002,862 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC increased its stake in Applied Digital by 736.8% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 486,577 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,014,000 after purchasing an additional 428,428 shares in the last quarter. 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 worth $19,282,000 after buying an additional 286,852 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Exchange Traded Concepts LLC lifted its stake in shares of Applied Digital by 37.6% in the fourth quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 1,002,090 shares of the company’s stock worth $7,656,000 after buying an additional 273,666 shares in 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.