Applied Digital Co. (NASDAQ:APLD) Short Interest Up 14.7% in December

Applied Digital Co. (NASDAQ:APLD) was the target of a large increase in short interest in December. As of December 31st, there was short interest totalling 49,100,000 shares, an increase of 14.7% from the December 15th total of 42,790,000 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 15,910,000 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 3.1 days. Currently, 30.8% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Insider Buying and Selling at Applied Digital

In other Applied Digital news, Director Richard N. Nottenburg sold 19,369 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Thursday, November 7th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.51, for a total transaction of $145,461.19. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 384,317 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,886,220.67. This represents a 4.80 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CEO Wes Cummins sold 200,000 shares of Applied Digital stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, November 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.20, for a total value 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 $35,658,786. This trade represents a 4.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 269,369 shares of company stock valued at $2,445,461 in the last three months. 11.81% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Applied Digital

A number of hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. SG Americas Securities LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Applied Digital by 414.5% in the fourth quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 265,792 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,031,000 after purchasing an additional 214,133 shares during the period. Dakota Wealth Management bought a new stake in Applied Digital during the 4th quarter valued at $115,000. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Applied Digital by 16.8% in the 4th quarter. Nisa Investment Advisors LLC now owns 11,774 shares of the company’s stock worth $90,000 after buying an additional 1,692 shares during the period. SeaCrest Wealth Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Applied Digital in the 4th quarter worth $586,000. Finally, Gunderson Capital Management Inc. bought a new position in shares of Applied Digital during the 4th quarter worth $83,000. 65.67% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Applied Digital Price Performance

APLD opened at $8.90 on Friday. The business has a fifty day moving average of $8.82 and a 200 day moving average of $6.98. The stock has a market cap of $1.88 billion, a P/E ratio of -7.61 and a beta of 4.78. The company has a quick ratio of 0.22, a current ratio of 0.22 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.62. Applied Digital has a 52-week low of $2.36 and a 52-week high of $11.25.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) last issued its earnings results on Tuesday, January 14th. The company reported ($0.06) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.14) by $0.08. The firm had revenue of $63.87 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $62.41 million. Applied Digital had a negative net margin of 74.95% and a negative return on equity of 88.87%. The business’s revenue was up 51.3% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.05) earnings per share. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Applied Digital will post -0.4 EPS for the current year.

Analyst Ratings Changes

APLD has been the subject of a number of research reports. Lake Street Capital increased their target price on Applied Digital from $7.00 to $11.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $11.00 price objective on shares of Applied Digital in a research note on Wednesday. Craig Hallum boosted their target price on Applied Digital from $10.00 to $12.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 10th. Cantor Fitzgerald lowered their price target on Applied Digital from $15.00 to $14.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday. Finally, HC Wainwright boosted 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. Seven research analysts have rated the stock with a buy rating, According to MarketBeat, Applied Digital currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $11.29.

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.