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

Applied Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:APLD - Get Free Report) was the recipient of some unusual options trading activity on Thursday. Traders purchased 129,034 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 38% compared to the average daily volume of 93,310 call options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several research firms recently issued reports on APLD. Compass Point reiterated a "neutral" rating and issued a $13.00 target price (up from $10.00) on shares of Applied Digital in a research note on Monday, June 9th. JMP Securities upped their price objective on shares of Applied Digital from $12.00 to $18.00 and gave the stock a "market outperform" rating in a research report on Tuesday, June 3rd. Cantor Fitzgerald reduced their price objective on shares of Applied Digital from $14.00 to $7.00 and set an "overweight" rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, April 15th. Citizens Jmp upgraded shares of Applied Digital to a "strong-buy" rating and set a $12.00 price objective for the company in a research report on Thursday, May 22nd. Finally, Craig Hallum upped their price objective on shares of Applied Digital from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a research report on Tuesday, June 3rd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a hold rating, eleven have given a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average price target of $12.73.

Insider Activity

In related news, Director Rachel H. Lee sold 24,212 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 21st. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.00, for a total value of $169,484.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 83,613 shares in the company, valued at $585,291. The trade was a 22.45% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. 11.81% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Applied Digital

Hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC increased its position in Applied Digital by 4.0% during the first quarter. Exchange Traded Concepts LLC now owns 1,042,035 shares of the company's stock worth $5,856,000 after purchasing an additional 39,945 shares during the last quarter. Register Financial Advisors LLC increased its position in Applied Digital by 26.2% during the first quarter. Register Financial Advisors LLC now owns 254,200 shares of the company's stock worth $1,429,000 after purchasing an additional 52,700 shares during the last quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN increased its position in Applied Digital by 96.6% during the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 119,963 shares of the company's stock worth $917,000 after purchasing an additional 58,943 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. increased its position in Applied Digital by 39.1% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 12,760,035 shares of the company's stock worth $97,487,000 after purchasing an additional 3,587,619 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Hunter Associates Investment Management LLC increased its position in Applied Digital by 15.9% during the first quarter. Hunter Associates Investment Management LLC now owns 535,921 shares of the company's stock worth $3,019,000 after purchasing an additional 73,718 shares during the last quarter. 65.67% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Applied Digital Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ APLD traded up $1.02 during mid-day trading on Friday, reaching $11.93. The company's stock had a trading volume of 55,521,340 shares, compared to its average volume of 38,697,371. The stock has a 50-day moving average of $9.42 and a two-hundred day moving average of $7.80. The stock has a market capitalization of $2.69 billion, a P/E ratio of -8.71 and a beta of 6.04. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.56, a quick ratio of 0.70 and a current ratio of 0.70. Applied Digital has a 1-year low of $3.01 and a 1-year high of $15.42.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Monday, April 14th. The company reported ($0.16) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.11) by ($0.05). The business had revenue of $52.92 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $62.91 million. Applied Digital had a negative net margin of 109.99% and a negative return on equity of 77.49%. During the same quarter last year, the company earned ($0.24) earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts anticipate that Applied Digital will post -0.96 EPS for the current fiscal 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.