Applied Digital's (APLD) "Sell (D-)" Rating Reaffirmed at Weiss Ratings

Key Points

• Applied Digital (APLD) received a "sell (D-)" rating from Weiss Ratings, reaffirming concerns about the company's stock performance.
• Despite the negative rating, several analysts have raised their price targets for APLD, with some issuing "buy" ratings, indicating mixed sentiments in the market.
• Recent insider trading activity shows that key executives sold a significant number of shares, raising potential red flags about their confidence in the company's future performance.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD - Get Free Report)'s stock had its "sell (d-)" rating restated by equities research analysts at Weiss Ratings in a note issued to investors on Wednesday,Weiss Ratings reports.

APLD has been the subject of a number of other reports. Craig Hallum raised their target price on Applied Digital from $12.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Monday, August 18th. Needham & Company LLC raised their price target on Applied Digital from $12.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. HC Wainwright raised their price target on Applied Digital from $15.00 to $20.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Monday, August 25th. Lake Street Capital raised their price target on Applied Digital from $14.00 to $18.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. Finally, Compass Point assumed coverage on Applied Digital in a report on Monday, September 15th. They issued a "buy" rating for the company. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, twelve have given a Buy rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $15.64.

Applied Digital Stock Performance

NASDAQ:APLD traded up $0.64 during trading hours on Wednesday, reaching $27.94. The stock had a trading volume of 20,510,000 shares, compared to its average volume of 36,118,871. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.36, a quick ratio of 0.77 and a current ratio of 0.77. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $17.82 and a 200 day simple moving average of $11.36. Applied Digital has a 12-month low of $3.31 and a 12-month high of $29.26. The stock has a market cap of $7.65 billion, a P/E ratio of -25.63 and a beta of 6.77.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The company reported ($0.12) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, hitting analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.12). Applied Digital had a negative return on equity of 50.03% and a negative net margin of 107.22%.The business had revenue of $38.01 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $42.86 million. During the same period last year, the business posted ($0.14) earnings per share. The business's revenue for the quarter was up 41.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, research analysts forecast that Applied Digital will post -0.96 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Mohammad Saidal Lavanw Mohmand sold 75,000 shares of Applied Digital stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $15.26, for a total transaction of $1,144,500.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 201,800 shares in the company, valued at $3,079,468. The trade was a 27.10% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Richard N. Nottenburg sold 20,000 shares of Applied Digital stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.26, for a total transaction of $305,200.00. Following the sale, the director owned 297,987 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $4,547,281.62. This trade represents a 6.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 506,250 shares of company stock worth $7,713,675. Insiders own 9.50% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Atlantic Union Bankshares Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Applied Digital during the second quarter worth $25,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. bought a new position in shares of Applied Digital during the 2nd quarter valued at about $26,000. PNC Financial Services Group Inc. bought a new position in shares of Applied Digital during the 1st quarter valued at about $28,000. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Applied Digital by 113.3% during the 1st quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 6,667 shares of the company's stock valued at $37,000 after purchasing an additional 3,542 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Ameriflex Group Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Applied Digital in the second quarter worth about $42,000. 65.67% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.

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