CoreWeave, SueprMicro surge boosts AI stocks

Shares across the AI infrastructure industry rose on Wednesday after CoreWeave, Super Micro Computer and Nebius Group all reported quarterly results eclipsing analyst forecasts. This rally also dragged server makers, memory suppliers and optical component firms to higher numbers in one single session.

Nebius leads gainers, CoreWeave closes behind

Nebius Group (NBIS) was up there among the day’s biggest movers, climbing about 23% to $238.47 after the neocloud provider reported quarterly revenue far ahead of analysts’ expectations. CoreWeave (CRWV), the AI cloud company, gained about 19% to trade at $107.87.

Super Micro Computer (SMCI), the AI server hardware manufacturer, saw an increase of 13% to $35.80 and issuing a forecast that Yahoo Finance said drove the stock up more than 6% on the guidance alone.

AI hosting names including Applied Digital (APLD) and IREN (IREN) also saw price increases.

CoreWeave faces order backlog

CoreWeave’s order backlog topped at $100 billion, a figure up about 50% from the previous quarter, and with CoreWeave reporting a further $25 billion in customer orders arriving after the quarter closed.

On a Yahoo Finance video segment, Westwood chief investment officer Adrian Helfert, who manages the firm’s Enhanced Income Opportunity ETF, explained how CoreWeave is paying for that growth. The company financed its last bond issuance “at nine and 5/8,” Helfert said, stating that the cost of capital was one of the key questions hanging over the sector.

Energy constraints remain a limiting factor

Helfert’s read on Supermicro’s quarter was that demand far surpassed what the company could actually produce. Supermicro told investors it would have booked more orders if not for limits in “power, in cooling, in energy,” he said, and those same shortages allow the company to raise its prices. The margins came in well above the company’s own expectations due to these price increases.

Helfert described a market where supply, not appetite or demand for product, is the limiting factor. The comments come as investors continue to back the firms that supply computing power, server racks and cooling instead of the AI applications themselves.

Rally hit memory, optics and overseas markets

The market movement rippled well beyond just CoreWeave or SuperMicro. Lumentum (LITE), which makes optical and photonic parts for data centers, gained after fiscal fourth-quarter revenue more than doubled to $1.01 billion, and rivals Coherent (COHR) and Ciena (CIEN) also saw price rises.

In the memory and storage industry, the Roundhill Memory ETF (DRAM) gained 4%, with Micron (MU) and Sandisk (SNDK) both going up by 4% and South Korea’s SK Hynix (SKHY) also seeing a price increase.

South Korea’s Kospi index has tracked its best month so far in August, related to Deutsche Bank’s belief that the earnings validate the presence of AI demand. Investors will now be looking to Nvidia (NVDA), which reports its earnings on August 26.

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