CoreWeave earnings: Jefferies eying founder selling, not profit, as the next catalyst

CoreWeave earnings: Jefferies eying founder selling, not profit, as the next catalyst

Tue, August 11, 2026 at 6:33 PM GMT+3 2 min read

• CRWV +0.69%

CoreWeave Inc (NASDAQ:CRWV) reports second-quarter earnings tonight, with Jefferies maintaining a Buy rating and $150 price target even as it flags that a major profitability inflection is still months away.

CoreWeave shares have climbed roughly 45% since hyperscaler earnings reaffirmed insatiable demand for AI compute.

Jefferies sees the stock as attractively valued at a $48 billion market cap against more than $99 billion in remaining performance obligations, and believes the eventual cancellation of founders' 10b5-1 selling plans could drive a re-rating.

Analysts do not expect a major EBIT inflection until the fourth quarter of 2026. Jefferies forecasts an in-line second-quarter print, with about 70% of full-year guided EBIT arriving in the fourth quarter, translating to roughly 15% fourth-quarter margins.

Data center deliveries are tracking on schedule. Three providers have converted a combined 420 megawatts of contracted power into turnkey capacity since the first quarter: Galaxy Digital (TSX-V:GLXY) (133 MW), Applied Digital (75 MW) and Core Scientific (252 MW).

A recent 8-K disclosed a delayed draw term loan with a roughly five-year duration versus average customer contracts of about three years, a shift from prior financing matched to contract terms. Jefferies said this points to CoreWeave capturing higher revenue-per-gigawatt economics on shorter deals, citing data suggesting $30 billion to $50 billion of revenue per gigawatt for the latest deployments.

The firm sees backlog upside as well. CoreWeave's 3.86+ gigawatts of contracted power implies over $46 billion of annual revenue potential, and assuming roughly five-year contracts, backlog could exceed $230 billion.

Jefferies also noted co-founders have sold about $2.9 billion of stock via 10b5-1 plans since the IPO, led by CSO Brian Venturo ($1.18 billion, 30% of shares), CDO Brannin McBee ($999 million, 36%) and CEO Michael Intrator ($730 million, 12%). Venturo has slowed his pace, accounting for just 5% of the $375 million in stock sold by co-founders since June 23. Jefferies said it will watch for any plan cancellations at earnings.

Strong hyperscaler results also support demand, Jefferies said. Combined backlog at major hyperscalers and Oracle rose $320 billion quarter-over-quarter, and the firm raised its 2026/2027 capex estimates for Oracle, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet to $811 billion and $1.1 trillion.

Shares of CoreWeave rose around 1% on Tuesday morning.