CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) shares fell 4.75% to $66.38 in premarket trading Friday amid continuing concerns over the company’s debt-funded AI infrastructure expansion, despite Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest buying 381,231 shares over the previous two trading sessions.
CoreWeave’s 9.625% unsecured notes due in 2032 traded below 80 cents on the dollar on Wednesday, pushing their secondary-market yield above 15%. The bonds recovered to about 81 cents on Thursday, with yields around 14.6%, but remained well below face value.
The higher secondary-market yields reflect the bonds’ lower trading prices, not a change in their fixed 9.625% coupon. The bond market pressure comes as CoreWeave relies heavily on external capital to buy advanced Nvidia processors and expand its data centers.
ARK purchased an additional 192,566 CoreWeave shares on Thursday, including 148,950 through its ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) and 43,616 through the ARK Next Generation Internet ETF (ARKW), according to the investment firm’s daily trade disclosures. The latest purchase was worth approximately $13.4 million at Thursday’s closing price of $69.69.
The transaction followed Wednesday’s purchase of 188,665 shares across the same two funds, valued at approximately $12.4 million using that day’s closing price of $65.78. Based on the respective closing prices, the combined purchases totaled an estimated $25.8 million. The calculation does not reflect the actual prices ARK paid for the shares.
CoreWeave Shares Swing as Nvidia Addresses Financing Concerns
The purchases came during a sharp selloff in CoreWeave shares. The stock dropped 15.46% on Wednesday before staging a volatile recovery Thursday, when it touched a new 52-week low of $59.51 and then rebounded 5.94% to close at $69.69.
During Thursday’s session, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg that CoreWeave’s financial strength was improving and its cost of capital was declining. He also said he saw no need for Nvidia to provide a financial backstop to the company, an assessment that contrasted with the recent rise in yields on CoreWeave’s unsecured bonds.
Nvidia already has a separate commercial agreement with CoreWeave, initially valued at $6.3 billion, that requires it to purchase residual unsold cloud-computing capacity through April 2032, subject to contractual conditions. The arrangement, disclosed in a September 2025 SEC filing, is a commercial purchase commitment rather than a debt guarantee.
Friday’s premarket decline wiped out about 85% of Thursday’s $3.91-per-share gain, leaving the stock slightly above its Wednesday closing price.
Financing Costs Draw Fresh Analyst Scrutiny
Morningstar lowered its CoreWeave valuation to $108 from $115, according to a Friday report. The research firm cited financing risks, noting that lower rates on the company’s delayed-draw term loans did not guarantee additional investment-grade financing. It also flagged competition for capital from larger hyperscalers with stronger credit profiles.
On Thursday, Mizuho analyst Gregg Moskowitz lowered his price target on CoreWeave to $88 from $115, a reduction of approximately 23.5%, while maintaining a Neutral rating.
During the second quarter, CoreWeave reported $9.4 billion in capital expenditures against revenue of $2.58 billion, illustrating the scale of its ongoing infrastructure expansion.
As of June 30, CoreWeave carried approximately $35.1 billion in borrowings and another $16.5 billion in operating and finance lease liabilities, according to its second-quarter SEC filing. Its second-quarter net interest expense reached $640 million.
According to Reuters, CoreWeave CEO Mike Intrator told employees in a Wednesday memo that the company’s contracted backlog was large enough to cover its debt obligations with room to spare.
The company reported approximately $104.2 billion in revenue backlog as of June 30, excluding more than $25 billion in additional customer commitments secured early in the third quarter. That backlog represents expected future revenue under committed contracts, subject to service delivery requirements, rather than cash immediately available to fund operations.
At the indicated Friday premarket price, CoreWeave shares were approximately 19% below their October 9 close of $82.08.