Investors Buy High Volume of Call Options on Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD)

Key Points

• Investors purchased 136,367 call options for Applied Digital, marking a 20% increase from the average daily volume.
• Directors Richard N. Nottenburg and Rachel H. Lee sold shares, resulting in a 3.42% and 22.45% decrease in their ownership of the stock, respectively.
• Applied Digital's stock saw a significant increase of 15.7% on a recent trading day, reaching $16.30 per share.

Applied Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:APLD - Get Free Report) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Monday. Investors purchased 136,367 call options on the company. Thisrepresentsanincreaseof20% compared to the typical daily volume of 113,600 call options.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, Director Richard N. Nottenburg sold 11,250 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, August 8th. The shares were sold at an average price of $14.22, for a total transaction of $159,975.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 317,987 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,521,775.14. This trade represents a 3.42% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this link. Also, Director Rachel H. Lee sold 24,212 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.00, for a total transaction of $169,484.00. Following the transaction, the director owned 83,613 shares in the company, valued at approximately $585,291. This trade represents a 22.45% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Company insiders own 11.81% of the company's stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Applied Digital

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Flagship Harbor Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Applied Digital by 6.0% in the 2nd quarter. Flagship Harbor Advisors LLC now owns 15,930 shares of the company's stock worth $160,000 after acquiring an additional 900 shares during the period. Quantinno Capital Management LP boosted its holdings in Applied Digital by 1.6% in the 2nd quarter. Quantinno Capital Management LP now owns 68,417 shares of the company's stock worth $689,000 after acquiring an additional 1,063 shares during the period. Corebridge Financial Inc. boosted its holdings in Applied Digital by 2.0% in the 1st quarter. Corebridge Financial Inc. now owns 97,224 shares of the company's stock worth $546,000 after acquiring an additional 1,899 shares during the period. Wedbush Securities Inc. boosted its holdings in Applied Digital by 14.8% in the 1st quarter. Wedbush Securities Inc. now owns 15,500 shares of the company's stock worth $87,000 after acquiring an additional 2,000 shares during the period. Finally, Wellington Management Group LLP boosted its holdings in Applied Digital by 11.7% in the 1st quarter. Wellington Management Group LLP now owns 19,056 shares of the company's stock worth $107,000 after acquiring an additional 2,001 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 65.67% of the company's stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities analysts recently weighed in on APLD shares. Roth Capital reiterated a "buy" rating on shares of Applied Digital in a research report on Monday, June 2nd. Citigroup reissued an "outperform" rating on shares of Applied Digital in a report on Tuesday, June 3rd. HC Wainwright raised their target price on Applied Digital from $12.00 to $15.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. B. Riley lifted their price target on Applied Digital from $8.00 to $15.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research note on Wednesday, June 4th. Finally, Compass Point raised Applied Digital from a "neutral" rating to a "buy" rating and set a $13.00 price target for the company in a research note on Friday, July 25th. Twelve analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of "Buy" and a consensus price target of $14.18.

Applied Digital Trading Up 15.7%

APLD traded up $2.21 during midday trading on Monday, hitting $16.30. The company's stock had a trading volume of 56,625,465 shares, compared to its average volume of 38,037,039. The company has a current ratio of 0.77, a quick ratio of 0.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.36. The firm has a market cap of $4.26 billion, a P/E ratio of -14.95 and a beta of 6.17. The firm has a 50-day moving average price of $11.45 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $8.44. Applied Digital has a 52-week low of $3.01 and a 52-week high of $16.92.

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

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.

This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest and most accurate reporting. This story was reviewed by MarketBeat's editorial team prior to publication. Please send any questions or comments about this story to contact@marketbeat.com.