NEW YORK, January 3, 2026, 07:36 ET — Market closed
Shares of Applied Digital Corp (APLD.O) closed up 14.6% at $28.11 on Friday, as traders leaned back into AI-linked infrastructure names on the first trading day of 2026. The stock ranged from $24.65 to $28.44, with about 36.1 million shares changing hands.
The move comes days before the Dallas, Texas-based company is due to report fiscal second-quarter results after the closing bell on Jan. 7. Analysts tracked by Benzinga expect a loss of 22 cents per share on revenue of $82.22 million, and recent notes from Northland Capital Markets’ Mike Grondahl and Lake Street’s Rob Brown kept bullish price targets of $40 and $45. 1
Investors are also weighing Applied Digital’s plan, announced Dec. 29, to spin out its cloud computing unit and combine it with Nasdaq-listed Ekso Bionics to form ChronoScale. The companies said the proposed deal is based on a non-binding term sheet — a preliminary agreement that is not final — and is expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to final documents and shareholder and regulatory approvals; Applied Digital would own about 97% of the combined company. Chairman and CEO Wes Cummins said ChronoScale aims to “deliver accelerated compute at scale for the most demanding AI workloads,” referring to graphics processing units, chips widely used to train and run AI models. 2
Applied Digital’s jump came as U.S. markets started 2026 on firmer footing, with the Dow and S&P 500 ending higher on Friday while the Nasdaq was little changed. Joe Mazzola, head of trading and derivatives strategy at Charles Schwab, said investors have been “buy the dip, sell the rip,” while staying mindful of valuations in AI-linked stocks. 3
In broader markets, U.S. Treasury yields rose and the dollar firmed on Friday, with “AI infrastructure” among pockets of strength, according to Jed Ellerbroek, a portfolio manager at Argent Capital. He pointed to lighter holiday trading volume and leadership from value, industrial and utility stocks tied to the data center buildout. 4
Applied Digital has repositioned itself as a designer and operator of high-performance data centers and colocation facilities — rented space, power and cooling for customers’ servers — aimed at AI, cloud and other computing workloads.
The business is capital-intensive, meaning it requires heavy upfront spending on land, power and equipment. That leaves sentiment sensitive to financing conditions and to any signal in quarterly results that new capacity is translating into steadier revenue.
Applied Digital beat Wall Street revenue estimates in its most recent quarter, supported by demand for high-performance infrastructure and its cloud services business, Reuters reported in October. 5
Elsewhere in the “AI infrastructure” trade on Friday, data center power-and-cooling supplier Vertiv rose after an analyst upgrade, Nasdaq.com reported. Chipmakers also led market gainers, helping set the tone for riskier AI-adjacent names. 6
For Applied Digital’s Jan. 7 report, investors will be listening for detail on revenue trajectory, cash usage and any changes to timelines around the ChronoScale transaction. Guidance on funding needs and the pace of new buildouts is likely to matter as much as headline earnings.
Before the next U.S. session, traders also face a busy January macro calendar, starting with monthly jobs data due Jan. 9 and consumer price index inflation data on Jan. 13, Reuters reported. Those releases can reset expectations for Federal Reserve policy, a key driver for high-growth infrastructure names that depend on capital markets. 7
