Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) Trading 10.1% Higher - Still a Buy?

Applied Digital Co. (NASDAQ:APLD - Get Free Report)'s share price rose 10.1% during trading on Friday . The company traded as high as $8.63 and last traded at $8.59. Approximately 5,429,238 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 29% from the average daily volume of 7,678,491 shares. The stock had previously closed at $7.80.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of research firms have weighed in on APLD. Craig Hallum boosted their price objective on Applied Digital from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. HC Wainwright upped their price objective on shares of Applied Digital from $5.00 to $10.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Wednesday, October 16th. B. Riley lifted their target price on shares of Applied Digital from $8.00 to $9.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Friday, September 13th. Cantor Fitzgerald started coverage on shares of Applied Digital in a research report on Friday, December 20th. They set an "overweight" rating and a $15.00 price target on the stock. Finally, Roth Mkm reissued a "buy" rating and set a $10.00 target price on shares of Applied Digital in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average price target of $11.14.

Applied Digital Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62, a current ratio of 0.22 and a quick ratio of 0.22. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -7.79 and a beta of 4.67. The stock has a 50 day moving average price of $8.50 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $6.78.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD - Get Free Report) 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. Applied Digital had a negative return on equity of 88.87% and a negative net margin of 74.95%. The company had revenue of $60.70 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $54.85 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted ($0.10) EPS. Applied Digital's revenue was up 67.2% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts expect that Applied Digital Co. will post -0.4 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other Applied Digital news, Director Richard N. Nottenburg sold 50,000 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.20, for a total value of $460,000.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 334,317 shares of the company's stock, valued at $3,075,716.40. This trade represents a 13.01 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Wes Cummins sold 200,000 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.20, for a total value of $1,840,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 3,875,955 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $35,658,786. This represents a 4.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 359,369 shares of company stock worth $3,115,161 in the last ninety days. 11.81% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Applied Digital

Several large investors have recently bought and sold shares of APLD. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its holdings in shares of Applied Digital by 18.4% in the third quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 56,355 shares of the company's stock valued at $465,000 after buying an additional 8,774 shares during the last quarter. Tidal Investments LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Applied Digital in the 3rd quarter worth about $95,000. Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new stake in Applied Digital during the 3rd quarter valued at $2,030,000. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Applied Digital by 48.7% in the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,061,160 shares of the company's stock valued at $25,258,000 after acquiring an additional 1,002,862 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Barclays PLC increased its position in Applied Digital by 736.8% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 486,577 shares of the company's stock worth $4,014,000 after purchasing an additional 428,428 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.