APLX

The Week

Applied Digital (APLD) fell 6.65% this week to close at $26.25, while the S&P 500 rose 1.21%, leaving the stock roughly 7.86 percentage points behind the benchmark. The week traced a fade-from-highs pattern: a gap-up Monday took the stock to $28.845 intraday, Tuesday pushed as high as $29.099, then three straight down days broke below $27 on Thursday and bottomed at $25.96 on Friday before settling near the week’s low. The weekly range was 10.99% wide, and average daily volume of 14.4m shares ran about 10.4% below the 60-session median, a sign of lighter participation in the pullback.

Key Events

Two threads drove the narrative this week. On 23 September, UBS initiated coverage on data-centre colocation names, arguing the industry is preparing to triple capacity and assigning a bullish-leaning starting view. A day later the bank grouped Applied Digital with Hut 8 and TeraWulf, flagging at least 30% upside for each. On the corporate-governance side, the company filed DEF 14A materials over the weekend, revealing CEO Wes Cummins’ FY2026 total compensation of $189.22m, including $185.90m in stock awards - a figure that became a central talking point. Earlier in the week, options flow showed some APLD calls had jumped as much as 800% on Friday following a 6% gain in the underlying, pointing to active short-term speculation.

Analyst Ratings

As of 25 September 2026, 15 brokers cover Applied Digital: 11 rate it buy, 2 rate it overweight, 2 rate it hold, and none rate it underweight or sell. The consensus rating is strong buy, with a consensus target price of $66.43, about 153% above the spot price of $26.25. The target range is wide - from $22 at the low end to $109 at the high end - reflecting a split in views that nonetheless skews upward. Within the cloud and data-centre industry, the stock ranks 13th out of 30 names, placing it in the upper-middle tier of broker coverage.

The Week Ahead

The macro calendar fills up next week: the Dallas Fed manufacturing business activity index, FHFA house prices, the Case Shiller 20-city home price index, JOLTS job openings and consumer confidence data all arrive in the coming days, offering fresh signals on the strength of the US economy. On the company side, the proxy materials and CEO pay disclosure published this week could keep generating discussion, with shareholder attention likely to stay on voting-related developments. Whether UBS’s fresh coverage and the implied upside translate into sustained buying is something to watch over the next few sessions.

In Short

This week’s tape for APLD looks like a split picture. Brokers lean heavily toward buy, with a consensus target price sitting 153% above spot, while the latest trading day’s flows show large and mid-sized orders roughly balanced, with no clear net direction from small lots either. The valuation backdrop adds another layer: the stock trades at around 4.45x book value with negative earnings, meaning the market is pricing in future data-centre capacity expansion rather than current profitability. The key question going forward is whether the positive broker view and the still-uncommitted money flows start moving in the same direction, and how next week’s macro data shapes the broader risk mood.

This article is generated by LongbridgeAI from market data, for information only and not investment advice.