NEW YORK, January 1, 2026, 20:19 ET — Market closed
Applied Digital Corporation shares rose about 1.8% to $24.52 on Dec. 31, the last trading day of 2025, after analysts reiterated bullish ratings heading into next week’s earnings. U.S. stock markets were closed on Thursday for the New Year’s Day holiday.
The small-cap data-center operator has become a high-octane bet on demand for power, cooling and space to run artificial intelligence workloads.
That matters now because the next earnings update is due next week, and investors are looking for clearer signals on lease momentum, buildout pace and financing needs.
Northland Capital Markets analyst Mike Grondahl on Tuesday maintained an Outperform rating on Applied Digital with a $40 price target, while Lake Street analyst Rob Brown reiterated a Buy rating and kept a $45 target on the final trading day of 2025, Benzinga reported. Benzinga Pro estimates showed the company is expected to post a loss of 10 cents per share on revenue of $87.51 million.
Applied Digital said on Dec. 29 it signed a non-binding term sheet — a preliminary agreement — to spin out, or separate into a standalone company, its cloud unit and combine it with Ekso Bionics to form ChronoScale, an accelerated compute platform built around graphics processing units (GPUs), chips widely used to train and run AI models. Applied Digital said it would own about 97% of the combined entity and expects the deal to close in the first half of 2026, and CEO Wes Cummins said the aim is to “deliver accelerated compute at scale for the most demanding AI workloads.” Applied Digital Corporation
A securities filing described the deal as a proposed business combination and said investors should expect additional transaction documents, including a proxy statement/prospectus, as the structure is finalized.
Applied Digital outperformed larger data-center peers in the last session, with Digital Realty down about 1.1% and Equinix off about 0.5%, while Core Scientific slipped about 0.3%.
Northland cited a development pipeline of more than 9 gigawatts of projects — a measure of power capacity that matters for data-center buildouts — and argued the company is positioned to outperform peers in 2026, Investing.com reported.
Applied Digital is set to report results for the fiscal second quarter ended Nov. 30 after the close on Jan. 7 and host a conference call at 5 p.m. ET, the company said. Investors will listen for updates on leasing demand, capital spending plans and any timeline for moving the ChronoScale term sheet into definitive agreements.
Before the next session on Friday, traders will watch weekly initial jobless claims at 8:30 a.m. ET and U.S. construction data at 10:00 a.m., releases that can shift rate expectations and hit growth stocks.
APLD traded between $24.24 and $25.94 on Dec. 31 and logged about 29 million shares of volume, Investing.com data showed. Traders are watching the mid-$20s area for a retest, while a break below $24 would put recent lows back in view.
Beyond Friday’s reopen, the next hard catalyst is the Jan. 7 report, when any change in contract momentum or funding plans could reset expectations for early 2026. Any new filings or definitive documents tied to the proposed ChronoScale transaction could also move the stock.
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