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

Applied Digital Corporation (NASDAQ:APLD) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Monday. Stock investors purchased 169,881 call options on the stock. This is an increase of 35% compared to the typical daily volume of 125,902 call options.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Wes Cummins sold 400,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $15.26, for a total transaction of $6,104,000.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 2,659,379 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $40,582,123.54. This represents a 13.07% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, Director Richard N. Nottenburg sold 20,000 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, September 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $15.26, for a total transaction of $305,200.00. Following the transaction, the director directly owned 297,987 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,547,281.62. This represents a 6.29% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 506,250 shares of company stock valued at $7,713,675 over the last ninety days. 11.81% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Applied Digital

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Osaic Holdings Inc. boosted its position in shares of Applied Digital by 48.4% in the second quarter. Osaic Holdings Inc. now owns 40,734 shares of the company’s stock valued at $410,000 after acquiring an additional 13,294 shares during the period. B. Riley Wealth Advisors Inc. purchased a new stake in Applied Digital in the second quarter valued at approximately $2,062,000. Marex Group plc purchased a new position in shares of Applied Digital during the second quarter worth approximately $383,000. Advisory Services Network LLC purchased a new position in shares of Applied Digital during the second quarter worth approximately $894,000. Finally, Tactive Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Applied Digital during the second quarter worth approximately $1,695,000. 65.67% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

APLD has been the topic of several research reports. Craig Hallum upped their price objective on shares of Applied Digital from $12.00 to $23.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, August 18th. Compass Point initiated coverage on shares of Applied Digital in a report on Monday, September 15th. They set a “buy” rating on the stock. Lake Street Capital upped their price objective on shares of Applied Digital from $14.00 to $18.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. 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 report on Tuesday, June 3rd. Finally, Needham & Company LLC upped their price objective on shares of Applied Digital from $12.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a report on Thursday, July 31st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating and twelve have assigned a Buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Buy” and an average target price of $15.64.

Applied Digital Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ:APLD opened at $24.67 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 0.77, a current ratio of 0.77 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.36. The firm has a market capitalization of $6.64 billion, a PE ratio of -22.63 and a beta of 6.64. Applied Digital has a twelve month low of $3.31 and a twelve month high of $25.61. The company has a 50-day moving average price of $15.07 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $10.13.

Applied Digital (NASDAQ:APLD) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 30th. The company reported ($0.12) earnings per share for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.12). Applied Digital had a negative net margin of 107.22% and a negative return on equity of 50.03%. The firm had revenue of $38.01 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $42.86 million. During the same quarter last year, the business earned ($0.14) earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 41.3% on a year-over-year basis. Equities analysts forecast that Applied Digital will post -0.96 EPS for the current 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.