CoreWeave shares slide again, leaving the AI cloud provider on track for a weekly loss of about 26%

CoreWeave shares fell about 13% on Friday afternoon, erasing Thursday's rebound and leaving the stock on track for a weekly loss of about 26%, as investors kept questioning how the heavily indebted AI cloud provider will fund its data-center build-out at higher borrowing costs.

A one-day rebound gives way

CoreWeave shares were trading near $60.89 at about 2:30 p.m. ET on Friday, down 12.6% from Thursday's close of $69.69, according to market data. The stock opened at $65.19 and had not traded above $66.69 during the session. It closed at $82.08 on Oct. 9, which left it down about 26% for the week at that point. Prices change continuously, and Friday's close was not available when this article was written.

The week's steepest drop came on Wednesday, when the shares fell 15.5% to $65.78. They rose 5.9% on Thursday after falling as much as 9.5% earlier in that session. A year ago, on Oct. 16, 2025, the stock closed at $141.74, so it has lost more than half its value since.

Other so-called neoclouds, which rent out computing power built on Nvidia processors, fell with it. Nebius was down about 12% at $165.76 and IREN about 10.5% at $27.20 at the same time. The Nasdaq Composite was down about 2.2%.

What the bond market is signaling

Much of this week's worry has centered on CoreWeave's debt. Yields on some of its bonds rose to roughly 15% to 16% this week, Reuters reported on Friday, a level investors usually associate with distressed credit. Those yields are implied by the prices the bonds trade at between investors. They are not the interest CoreWeave pays: the company's notes due 2031 and 2032 carry coupons of 9.75% and 9.625%, according to CNBC. On Thursday, bonds CoreWeave sold in April were quoted at 79.15 cents on the dollar, according to Tradeweb data cited by Reuters.

The cost of insuring the company's debt against default rose as well. Five-year credit default swaps on CoreWeave reached 1,194.5 basis points intraday on Thursday, the highest on record, according to ICE Data Services figures reported by TNW. Swap prices reversed later that day, Axios reported. By midday Friday, the yield on the 2032 bond was little changed, CNBC reported, even as the stock fell again.

What CoreWeave owes and what it has contracted

CoreWeave's most recent quarterly report, for the period ended June 30, lists $35.07 billion of debt: $31.41 billion of recourse debt and $3.66 billion of non-recourse debt, counting both current and long-term portions. The company also carried $16.32 billion of operating lease liabilities, about double the $8.2 billion at the end of 2025, and held $5.52 billion of cash and cash equivalents.

Against that, CoreWeave reported $103.7 billion of remaining performance obligations, meaning contracted revenue it has not yet recognized, as of June 30. It expected to recognize 41% of that within 24 months. In a memo to employees on Wednesday, reported by CNBC and Reuters, Chief Executive Mike Intrator wrote: "We are confident in our backlog which more than supports all of our debt obligations." He also wrote that "there will be periods of time when the market misunderstands and acts irrationally."

Huang says no backstop is needed

Nvidia, which supplies CoreWeave's chips, is also its second-largest shareholder with a stake of about 10%, according to Yonhap Infomax and TNW. Speaking in Stockholm on Thursday, Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang said CoreWeave's financial strength "is improving every day" and that Nvidia does not need to backstop the company. "I'm optimistic. Their cost of capital is actually decreasing," he said. Reuters reported that Nvidia already has an agreement to buy any unsold CoreWeave capacity through April 13, 2032.

Bond and swap prices this week moved the other way. Higher yields and costlier default protection mean lenders are asking for more compensation to fund the company, at least for now.

Analysts split on the selloff

Several brokers defended the stock on Thursday and Friday. Jefferies analyst Brent Thill called the selloff "overdone" and kept a $150 price target, according to CNBC, while acknowledging that "it's a valid concern that new debt deals could price at higher rates." JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee, who rates the shares overweight, wrote that CoreWeave's "capacity is pre-sold under long-term take-or-pay contracts rather than building for estimated demand." Cantor Fitzgerald's Brett Knoblauch wrote that it was "one of the most attractive times to add to or enter into a CRWV position."

Bernstein analyst Madison Rezaei was more skeptical. "CoreWeave does not just need customers willing to buy the compute. It needs lenders willing to fund the hardware on terms that leave something attractive for shareholders," Rezaei wrote, according to Axios.

Why the selloff reaches beyond one company

CoreWeave is one of the largest borrowers linking private credit funds to the AI build-out, Reuters reported. It has large commitments from Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta Platforms, and several of its financings use special-purpose vehicles tied to specific infrastructure assets and customer contracts. That structure can reduce lenders' reliance on the resale value of chips, but it can also concentrate risk in a few large customers. James Martin, senior U.S. credit strategist at SMBC, said investors are still willing to finance data-center projects that are further from completion but are "demanding more compensation for it."

Interest rates are part of the backdrop. Futures markets priced about a 17% chance of a quarter-point Federal Reserve rate increase at the central bank's meeting later this month, CNBC reported Friday, after Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh declined to signal his next move. For CoreWeave, the next test is whether its bond yields and swap costs ease next week, and what rate it would pay on any new borrowing.