Data-center compute is called the "most valuable currency in the world right now": demand is exponential, but physical factories, power, materials and permits are the bottleneck, so even if every project finished at once demand would still outstrip supply.
CRWV, APLD, NBIS and IREN each lost about 25% in the week of Oct. 9-16, with the selloff framed as "it’s not the demand, it’s the money" because bond and credit conditions tightened.
A bond is treated as an IOU: if repayment looks safe it trades near par, and below about 80 cents on the dollar credit investors call it distressed; CRWV bonds broke below 80 cents on Oct. 14.
CRWV’s cost of default protection hit a record on Oct. 14, and models read that level as roughly a 60% chance of default within 5 years.
On Oct. 16 Zero Hedge ran "who’s next," quoting: "Meet the junk bonds that are one Corewave away from distress," while Forbes is said to count about $80 billion of data-center bonds sold this year, almost half junk.
CRWV is both borrower and tenant across data centers; by one count it is the only tenant behind 7 of the 20 data-center project bonds in the junk market, and those bonds total about $14 billion.
CRWV, APLD, NBIS and IREN are said to trade as a pack: they bottomed together on Nov. 21, mid-December, Mar. 30 and Jul. 29, then each staged fast rebounds, including +106% for CRWV, +154% for APLD, +234% for NBIS and +130% for IREN after the Mar. 30 low.
Wall Street is said to rush upgrades after clients have already sold the stocks down: Deutsche Bank said "buy the dip" on Oct. 15 with a $150 target for CRWV, Jeff bought at 150 the same day, Caner called it one of the best entry points ever, Evercore and Wells kept buy ratings, Goldman upgraded CRWV on Oct. 19, and Truist reiterated buy on NBIS at 355 on Oct. 19.
IREN is shifting from Bitcoin mining to an AI cloud, plans to shut down Bitcoin mining by year-end, owns data centers and GPUs, and is funding chips like CRWV; spending is guided at $25-30 billion this fiscal year and share count rose from about 258 million to 394 million in a little over a year.
IREN announced a $9.7 billion, 5-year Microsoft contract, delivered and had accepted the first of four Microsoft deployments on Aug. 13, has a $3.4 billion contract with NVDA itself, and says about $4 billion of annual revenue is already contracted with everything targeted to be running by Dec. 31.
On Oct. 20 IREN’s co-CEO said data centers were paid for in cash with no debt against those sites; prepayments plus a 6% investment-grade loan are said to cover about 96% of the chips, and IREN has about $7.6 billion of cash.
IREN lost about $684 million last quarter, mostly on write-offs of old mining machines and some GPU-financing costs; Morningstar cut fair value to 37, and the main risk is execution if Microsoft phases slip and Microsoft cuts back.
IREN is about 41% below its 200-day moving average, has an RSI near 24, and is described as the most stretched of the four; its 1-year floor is 29-31, that floor broke on Oct. 15-16, and the next catalyst is earnings around Nov. 5.
NEBIUS rents Nvidia GPUs from data centers in Finland, New Jersey, Missouri, Israel, the UK and elsewhere; it fell about 25% in a week on sympathy even though there was no earnings miss, guidance cut or contract news.
NEBIUS posted $582 million of revenue last quarter, up 454%; run-rate was $3 billion at end-June, year-end target is $7-9 billion and may reach $9 billion.
NEBIUS has about $37.5 billion in signed contracts, including Microsoft up to $19.4 billion and Meta up to $27 billion; NVDA invested $2 billion in March for about an 8% stake, and customers prepay while NEBIUS holds about $9 billion of cash.
NEBIUS expects to spend about $20-25 billion this year on about $3 billion of revenue, funds growth with convertibles that dilute holders, and insiders sold about $318 million over the last year while buying almost none.
NEBIUS is the strongest chart: down about 43% versus the others down 60%+, sitting on its 200-day around 174, with only one prior close below that level on Feb. 5, after which it ran 140% in three months.
NEBIUS has made higher lows at 73 in February, 89 in March, 132 in April, 146 in July and 160 now; it tagged 160-165 three times from Oct. 15-20, with a break below 146 opening 132 about 23% lower.
APLD was called out on Apr. 24, 2025 around 453-ish, hit 1248 in February and ran to 50.72 on May 28, still about 327% above the call despite multiple 34%, 44% and 50% drawdowns and a 64% drawdown from the top at the Oct. 16 low.
APLD is a landlord for AI campuses on long leases with NVDA chips; it has about $6.4 billion of debt, 1.41 gigawatts leased across five campuses and about $36 billion of contracted revenue, mostly on 15-year leases.
Only one of APLD’s five campuses is leased to CRWV; the other four are leased to investment-grade hyperscalers, while the first campus had 250 MW live as of Oct. 1 and management expects about 250 more MW of leases by year-end at materially higher pricing.
APLD closed a $1.59 billion note at 7% for the next building, issued no common stock last quarter, and had the president and CEO buy on the worst day of the selloff at 18 and change; last quarter revenue was up about 322%, though about $183 million was one-time fit-out work.
APLD’s chart cracked: on Oct. 13 the floor was 19-23, on Oct. 16 it closed at $18.5 with a $17.65 low, RSI hit about 26, and the stock was about 39% below its 200-day, a setup the notes say appears only about 1.6% of the time over 2 years.
APLD’s next levels are 17.65-19 as the new floor, 20-23 as resistance, then 26 on the 50-day and 32 on the 200-day; a break below 17.65 opens the September 2025 base around 13-15, roughly 25-30% lower.
CRWV is the center of the controversy: it buys NVDA chips, puts them in data centers and rents compute to MSFT, OpenAI, META and others, with Deutsche Bank estimating about $10 billion of cash in the next year versus about $45 billion needed for chips and buildings.
CRWV still pays about 9.5% on locked-in bonds, while the market rate on new money is around 15%; the notes say that new-money borrowing cost should come down and is already starting to.
CRWV has about $104 billion of signed contracts, about 40% expected within 2 years, and many contracts are take-or-pay; each data center is said to pay for itself in about 2.5 years, and Jensen Huang said on Oct. 15 that finances are improving and there is no need to backstop it.
CRWV traded 131 million shares on Oct. 15, the most ever in a single day since IPO; it hit $59.51 intraday and closed around $69.70 at the high, reinforcing the importance of volume.
CRWV’s chart key is 57-65 support; below that the setup breaks, with little underneath until the low 40s, about 30% below current levels and about 33% below the 200-day, where backtests say the stock is only that stretched about 3.6% of the time.
CRWV upside levels are 70, then the Oct. 14 gap at 72-78, then 86-93 where the 50-day, 200-day and Oct. 6 high are stacked; the stock has repeatedly made lower highs at 138, 132, 117, 104 and 93.
The group risk is framed as financing rather than oversupply or weak demand, and the dot-bubble comparison is rejected because AI data-center capacity is sold out before it is built, not left empty after it is finished.