CoreWeave 2Q26 First Take: another post-earnings surge—how good were the prints for the new cloud leader? From a surprise vs. consensus angle, results were not a major beat: revenue was in line, GPM trailed, and only Adj. OP meaningfully beat. In general, markets do not prefer a setup with muted growth but strong profits alone.

Trend-wise, execution is improving across the board: revenue growth kept accelerating, and both GPM and OPM moved higher. The prior issue of slower compute coming online also reversed this quarter.

Guidance tells a similar story. For 3Q, the revenue and profit outlook does not clearly top consensus, with profit a bit below. However, the 4Q implied by the full-year guide looks better across the board, and both growth and margins are guided to keep improving into 3Q and 4Q.

By 4Q, revenue growth is set to exceed 190%, and margin to reach 14%+. Dolphin Research believes the market likes the improving outlook more than this quarter’s print.

In detail: see below.

1) Headline results: revenue was ~2.58bn (+112% YoY), with growth roughly flat QoQ and in line with the Street. Our calculated 'true' GPM was ~7.3%, up from 4.3% last quarter but below the ~8% consensus. Helped by lower other expenses, Adj. OP came in at ~130mn vs. ~70mn est., with OPM at 5% vs. 1% last quarter—margins for new cloud names are turning up.

2) Backlog stood at ~104.0bn at quarter-end, up ~4.6bn QoQ and in line with expectations. Nothing to surprise the market here.

3) A clear positive: newly online compute reached 500GW this quarter vs. 150GW in 1Q, signaling much better build efficiency. Cumulative online capacity hit 1.5GW, well ahead of the ~1.25GW the market expected.

4) Investment is ramping alongside fast-growing compute and revenue. Capex was ~9.4bn, a new high and above the ~8.0bn consensus; next quarter’s guide points to as much as ~13.5bn.At the same time, net debt increased by ~6.6bn, and interest expense rose ~140% YoY. The good news: interest as a share of revenue has stabilized around ~25%, not rising further.

5) At the midpoint, next quarter revenue is guided to ~3.53bn (+158% YoY), with both the absolute level and growth accelerating vs. this quarter. Adj. profit is guided to ~230mn with OPM at 6.5%, below the ~260mn the Street expected, but the implied margin still improves vs. this quarter. $Coreweave(CRWV.US)