Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) Shares Up 3.3% on Analyst Upgrade

Applied Digital Co. (NASDAQ:APLD - Get Free Report) shares rose 3.3% on Wednesday after Northland Securities raised their price target on the stock from $12.00 to $20.00. Northland Securities currently has an outperform rating on the stock. Applied Digital traded as high as $8.07 and last traded at $7.94. Approximately 6,125,205 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 75% from the average daily volume of 24,238,842 shares. The stock had previously closed at $7.69.

Several other research firms have also commented on APLD. HC Wainwright increased their price objective on shares of Applied Digital from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 15th. Cantor Fitzgerald reduced their target price on shares of Applied Digital from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an "overweight" rating on the stock in a research note on Wednesday, January 15th. Compass Point initiated coverage on shares of Applied Digital in a research note on Tuesday, January 28th. They issued a "buy" rating and a $10.00 target price on the stock. Craig Hallum increased their target price on shares of Applied Digital from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Finally, Lake Street Capital increased their target price on shares of Applied Digital from $7.00 to $11.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research note on Thursday, October 10th. Nine analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average price target of $12.11.

Insider Buying and Selling at Applied Digital

In other Applied Digital news, CEO Wes Cummins sold 200,000 shares of Applied Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.20, for a total transaction of $1,840,000.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 3,875,955 shares in the company, valued at approximately $35,658,786. The trade was a 4.91 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, Director Richard N. Nottenburg sold 50,000 shares of Applied Digital stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, November 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.20, for a total transaction of $460,000.00. Following the transaction, the director now directly owns 334,317 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $3,075,716.40. This trade represents a 13.01 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders have sold 270,000 shares of company stock valued at $2,477,000. Company insiders own 11.81% of the company's stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Applied Digital

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Van ECK Associates Corp boosted its position in shares of Applied Digital by 113.8% during the 4th quarter. Van ECK Associates Corp now owns 4,404,313 shares of the company's stock valued at $33,649,000 after acquiring an additional 2,344,572 shares during the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC increased its stake in Applied Digital by 48.7% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 3,061,160 shares of the company's stock worth $25,258,000 after purchasing an additional 1,002,862 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. increased its stake in Applied Digital by 100.0% during the fourth quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 1,798,431 shares of the company's stock worth $13,740,000 after purchasing an additional 899,138 shares during the period. Barclays PLC increased its stake in Applied Digital by 736.8% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 486,577 shares of the company's stock worth $4,014,000 after purchasing an additional 428,428 shares during the period. Finally, Wolverine Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in Applied Digital during the fourth quarter worth about $3,056,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 65.67% of the company's stock.

Applied Digital Price Performance

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.22, a current ratio of 0.77 and a quick ratio of 0.77. The company has a market capitalization of $1.74 billion, a PE ratio of -4.50 and a beta of 4.77. The stock's 50 day simple moving average is $8.58 and its 200-day simple moving average is $7.16.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, January 14th. The company reported ($0.06) earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.14) by $0.08. Applied Digital had a negative net margin of 127.86% and a negative return on equity of 117.67%. The firm had revenue of $63.87 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $62.41 million. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.05) earnings per share. The business's quarterly revenue was up 51.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Applied Digital Co. will post -0.96 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

About Applied Digital

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.