New York, Feb 27, 2026, 17:26 EST — After-hours
- CoreWeave stock dropped during the session as the AI cloud company outlined a much steeper spending plan for 2026.
- Investors sized up a growing contract backlog, but lingering worries about short-term margin squeezes and looming funding requirements hung in the air.
- Attention now shifts to the pace of new capacity additions, along with whatever management has to say next week.
CoreWeave Inc shares tumbled 18.5% to $79.53 at the bell, then crept up to around $80 in late trading, as the company’s fresh earnings report and guidance put investor nerves on edge again about the costs piling up for its AI data-center buildout.
The cloud infrastructure firm is forecasting capital expenditure in 2026 at $30 billion to $35 billion—over twice last year’s outlay—as it ramps up investment in data centers, chips, and power. The company flagged “short-term pressure” on margins alongside the spending hike. Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said investors seemed worried about both the investment’s long-term returns and the company’s strategy for footing the bill. Reuters
CoreWeave has told investors it’s ramping up capacity at a quicker pace, accepting some near-term margin pain for the sake of additional infrastructure. “We made the decision to go ahead and to build faster so that we can deliver more infrastructure,” CEO Michael Intrator said in an interview with Reuters. “It puts some short-term pressure on the margins,” he noted. D.A. Davidson’s Alexander Platt pointed out that the stock was being “punished for either having too little capex or too much capex.” WKZO
CoreWeave’s latest filing showed fourth-quarter revenue landed at $1.572 billion, with a net loss totaling $452 million. Net interest expense, driven up by higher financing costs, came in at $388 million. “2025 was a defining year for CoreWeave as we became the fastest cloud in history to reach $5 billion in annual revenue,” said Intrator. CFO Nitin Agrawal added, “our revenue backlog grew to $66.8 billion”—that figure reflects contractual commitments not yet booked as revenue. SEC
The rout has traders zoning in on two things: margins and money. CoreWeave’s push is all about showing that scaling up GPU-packed data centers fast can actually pay off—without letting financing expenses erode their profits.
Here’s the risk: funding dries up, or construction schedules fall behind. The company might get stuck with pricier debt and see backlog-to-revenue conversions stall, while bigger competitors — flush with capital — keep plowing money into their own projects.
Looking ahead to the next session and into next week, investors want clarity—more specifics on spending discipline, updates on financing strategies, and any sign of a change in management’s tone around demand or delivery schedules.
CoreWeave is set to appear at the Morgan Stanley TMT Conference on March 4, followed by the Cantor Global Technology Conference on March 10. Both conferences come on the heels of Friday’s slide, offering a potential window for new market commentary.
