Applied Digital Target of Unusually Large Options Trading (NASDAQ:APLD)

Key Points

• Investors purchased 169,881 call options for Applied Digital, marking a 35% increase over the average trading volume.
• Insider selling included significant transactions by Director Richard N. Nottenburg and CEO Wes Cummins, decreasing their ownership stakes by 6.29% and 13.07% respectively.
• Applied Digital's share price rose to $24.10, with a trading volume of 44.4 million shares, indicating significant market interest.

Applied Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:APLD - Get Free Report) was the recipient of unusually large options trading on Monday. Investors acquired 169,881 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 35% compared to the typical daily volume of 125,902 call options.

Applied Digital Trading Up 2.2%

Shares of APLD stock traded up $0.55 during mid-day trading on Tuesday, hitting $25.00. The company's stock had a trading volume of 19,113,578 shares, compared to its average volume of 36,593,590. The company's fifty day simple moving average is $14.78 and its 200-day simple moving average is $10.03. Applied Digital has a 52 week low of $3.31 and a 52 week high of $25.61. 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 company has a market cap of $6.73 billion, a PE ratio of -22.94 and a beta of 6.65.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The company reported ($0.12) EPS for the quarter, meeting 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 analyst estimates of $42.86 million. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted ($0.14) EPS. The firm's revenue was up 41.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Applied Digital will post -0.96 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In related news, CFO Mohammad Saidal Lavanw Mohmand sold 75,000 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.26, for a total transaction of $1,144,500.00. Following the sale, the chief financial officer owned 201,800 shares of the company's stock, valued at $3,079,468. This represents 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 the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.26, for a total value of $305,200.00. Following the sale, the director directly owned 297,987 shares in the company, valued at $4,547,281.62. This represents a 6.29% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 506,250 shares of company stock valued at $7,713,675 over the last 90 days. 11.81% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Applied Digital

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Osaic Holdings Inc. lifted its position in shares of Applied Digital by 48.4% during the second quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 40,734 shares of the company's stock worth $410,000 after acquiring an additional 13,294 shares in the last quarter. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. bought a new position in shares of Applied Digital in the second quarter worth $2,062,000. Marex Group plc bought a new position in Applied Digital in the second quarter valued at $383,000. Advisory Services Network LLC purchased a new stake in Applied Digital during the second quarter valued at about $894,000. Finally, Tactive Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in Applied Digital during the second quarter valued at about $1,695,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 65.67% of the company's stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of brokerages recently issued reports on APLD. Craig Hallum increased their price target on Applied Digital from $12.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Monday, August 18th. JMP Securities raised their target price on Applied Digital from $12.00 to $18.00 and gave the company a "market outperform" rating in a report on Tuesday, June 3rd. Citigroup reaffirmed an "outperform" rating on shares of Applied Digital in a report on Tuesday, June 3rd. Roth Capital reaffirmed a "buy" rating on shares of Applied Digital in a report on Monday, June 2nd. 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 and twelve have assigned a Buy rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, Applied Digital has a consensus rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $15.64.

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.