The air around AI stocks is getting thin. If you’ve been watching the ticker lately, you know exactly what I mean. CoreWeave stock price now sits at $87.41, a number that tells a story of both massive recovery and lingering skepticism. It’s been a wild ride since the March 2025 IPO. Back then, the company debuted at $40, shot like a rocket to $187 by June, and then spent the rest of the year falling back to earth.
Honestly, it’s been exhausting for anyone holding the bag.
We’re seeing a 2.8% dip today, Jan 13, 2026, but that’s coming off a massive double-digit surge just yesterday. Why the whiplash? Because CoreWeave isn't just another software company. It’s a massive, debt-heavy bet on the physical guts of the internet. They buy GPUs—mostly from Nvidia—and rent them out. It sounds simple until you realize they’ve racked up over $18 billion in debt to do it.
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The Drama Behind the CoreWeave Stock Price Now
Market sentiment shifted hard last year. For a while, investors didn't care about the bills; they only cared about the compute. But then the "circular financing" talk started. Critics, including short-seller Jim Chanos, pointed out that Nvidia is both an investor in CoreWeave and its primary supplier. To some, it looked like a feedback loop designed to inflate growth.
CoreWeave CEO Michael Intrator has been out on the circuit fighting these claims. Just yesterday, a podcast appearance helped spark a 12% rally. He’s basically telling the world that the $300 million Nvidia put in is "de minimis" compared to the $25 billion in total capital they’ve raised.
It worked. For a day.
But today’s slight pullback shows that Wall Street is still keeping the receipt. The company is currently staring down a $1.09 billion projected net loss for the 2025 fiscal year. You can’t just ignore a billion-dollar hole because the tech is cool.
Why Everyone Is Obsessed With the Backlog
If you look at the fundamentals, there is a $55 billion elephant in the room. That’s the revenue backlog CoreWeave reported in Q3. It’s a staggering number. They’ve signed massive contracts with OpenAI—rumored to be around $11.9 billion—and Microsoft.
- OpenAI Partnership: They are the backbone for some of the heaviest training workloads.
- Microsoft Ties: When Azure runs out of chips, they often point customers toward CoreWeave.
- The Rubin Factor: Investors are now pricing in the shift to Nvidia's next-gen Rubin architecture.
The problem isn't the demand. It's the execution. Weather-related construction delays at data centers and spiking financing costs have turned what should be a "gold rush" into a grueling marathon. If they can’t get the chips in the racks on time, that $55 billion backlog stays on paper.
Valuation Reality Check
Right now, the market cap is hovering around $43.9 billion. Is that expensive? Well, the Price-to-Sales ratio is roughly 8.5x. Compare that to the peak last summer when it was over 30x, and you could argue it’s actually "cheap" for an AI infrastructure play.
However, the bears will point to the negative free cash flow. They "incinerated" roughly $8 billion in cash over the last four quarters. You’ve got to have stomach for that kind of burn.
Goldman Sachs just weighed in with a Neutral rating and an $86 target. They like the architecture, but they aren't ready to marry the stock yet. Meanwhile, some boutiques like Compass Point are still shouting from the rooftops with a $150 price target. The gap between those two numbers is where the risk lives.
The Lawsuit Looming in the Background
We also have to talk about the lawsuit filed yesterday in New Jersey. An investor named Raymond Masaitis is leading a class action, claiming the company overhyped its computing capacity post-IPO. Legal drama usually means a ceiling on the stock price until things get settled or dismissed.
It’s just another layer of "noise" that investors have to filter out.
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Actionable Insights for the Current Market
If you're looking at CoreWeave stock price now and wondering if it’s a buy, you have to decide what kind of investor you are. This isn't a "set it and forget it" index fund.
- Watch the EBITDA: Management expects to turn EBITDA positive by mid-2026. If they hit that milestone early, the stock could re-test the $100 level quickly.
- Monitor the Debt: With $18.4 billion in debt, interest rate shifts matter more to CoreWeave than they do to almost any other tech firm.
- The "Rubin" Upgrade: Any news about CoreWeave being the first to deploy Nvidia’s Rubin chips will likely act as a major catalyst.
Bottom line? The stock is currently in a "show me" phase. The hype of 2025 is gone. Now, it’s all about whether they can turn those massive data centers into actual profit before the debt load becomes too heavy to carry. Keep a close eye on the February 14 earnings call; that will be the next major "vibe check" for the entire AI infrastructure sector.