We use cookies to understand how you use our site and to improve your experience.
This includes personalizing content and advertising.
By pressing "Accept All" or closing out of this banner, you consent to the use of all cookies and similar technologies and the sharing of information they collect with third parties.
You can reject marketing cookies by pressing "Deny Optional," but we still use essential, performance, and functional cookies.
In addition, whether you "Accept All," Deny Optional," click the X or otherwise continue to use the site, you accept our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, revised from time to time.
You are being directed to ZacksTrade, a division of LBMZ Securities and licensed broker-dealer. ZacksTrade and Zacks.com are separate companies. The web link between the two companies is not a solicitation or offer to invest in a particular security or type of security. ZacksTrade does not endorse or adopt any particular investment strategy, any analyst opinion/rating/report or any approach to evaluating individual securities.
If you wish to go to ZacksTrade, click OK. If you do not, click Cancel.
CRWV Stock Ahead of Q2 Earnings: Buy, Sell, or Wait for the Results?
Read MoreHide Full Article
Key Takeaways
CoreWeave enters Q2 with nearly $100 billion in backlog and 112% year-over-year sales growth.
CoreWeave expects $30-$90 million in adjusted operating income as deployment costs weigh on margins.
Heavy debt, $650-$730 million in interest expense and $7-$9 billion in CapEx raise near-term risks.
CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV - Free Report) is scheduled to report second-quarter 2026 results on Aug. 11, 2026, after market close.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the bottom line in the to-be-reported quarter is pegged at a loss of $1.17 per share, widening 10.9% in the past 60 days and 333.3% from the prior-year reported number.
The consensus estimate for total revenues is $2.5 billion, indicating a 109.2% year-over-year increase. Management expects second-quarter revenues in the $2.45-$2.6 billion band.
CRWV’s earnings missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, while beating once, with the average surprise being 3.8%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
What Our Model Predicts for CRWV
Our proven model does not predict an earnings beat for CRWV this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy), or 3 (Hold) increases the chances of an earnings beat. This is not the case here. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they are reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.
CRWV heads into its second-quarter earnings with a powerful long-term AI infrastructure story, along with high expectations and significant financial risk. Its business is built around providing GPUs, data-center capacity and cloud infrastructure to customers developing and deploying AI models. The company's first-quarter numbers demonstrated just how rapidly demand is expanding, as it secured more than $40 billion in new commitments, grew its backlog to nearly $100 billion and delivered 112% year-over-year sales growth, while surpassing 1 GW of active power capacity.
Demand for inference-ready compute is accelerating, driving strong backlog growth, enterprise AI adoption and long-term margin and earnings potential. CoreWeave plans to expand its power footprint through leases and self-built sites, with its first self-build facility expected online later this year, while its NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) partnership supports further expansion and long-term growth. In the first quarter, CRWV raised $2 billion from NVIDIA, followed by more than $10 billion in additional debt and equity in the second quarter, with strong oversubscription highlighting robust investor confidence in its growth.
CRWV expects second-quarter adjusted operating income of $30–$90 million, with margins improving from first-quarter lows. The near-term pressure is timing-related, as new deployments incur costs before generating revenue, with contribution margins typically normalizing to the mid-20% range by month three. Nonetheless, CoreWeave's biggest strength is also one of its biggest risks. Building AI data centers and acquiring GPUs requires enormous capital expenditures. The company therefore cannot be evaluated like a conventional software company with high gross margins and relatively modest capital requirements.
First-quarter revenue growth was impressive, but CoreWeave still posted a $740 million GAAP net loss. Interest expense alone was approximately $536 million. Adjusted EBITDA was much stronger at $1.16 billion, but the difference between EBITDA and bottom-line profitability highlights the company's heavy financing burden. CRWV’s rising debt, interest costs and heavy CapEx could pressure near-term profitability, with second quarter interest expense of $650–$730 million and CapEx of $7–$9 billion, partly reflecting higher component costs.
Key Quarterly Business Updates
In June, CRWV announced that it had become the first AI cloud provider to complete the bring-up and full system-level validation of NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72, a next-generation AI platform. The achievement positions CRWV at the forefront of next-generation AI infrastructure, strengthening its competitive advantage in the rapidly expanding AI cloud market.
CRWV demonstrated the strength of its AI-native cloud platform in the MLPerf Training v6.0 benchmark, completing the training of the DeepSeek-V3 671B model in just 2.02 minutes using 8,192 NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 GPUs. This showcased the effectiveness of CoreWeave's AI native cloud architecture. It serves as a powerful validation of the company's AI cloud platform, poised to accelerate customer adoption while strengthening its competitive position.
CRWV Stock vs. Industry
CRWV has crashed 35.1% in the past year, underperforming the Zacks Internet Software industry’s decline of 13.5%. The stock has also lagged the Zacks Computer & Technology sector and the S&P 500’s growth of 31.5% and 24.1%, respectively.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The company has underperformed its peers and tech behemoths like Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) , which has declined 4.2% during the same time frame, while Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS - Free Report) , another strong contender in the AI infrastructure space, has risen 167.6%.
Key Valuation for CRWV
CRWV stock is not cheap, as its Value Style Score of D suggests a stretched valuation at this moment. In terms of Price/Book, CRWV shares are trading at 8.53X, higher than the Internet Software industry’s 4.98X, but it could mean more risk than opportunity.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
NBIS and MSFT shares are trading at multiples of 6.57X and 8.39X, respectively.
Investment Verdict: Buy, Hold or Fold CRWV Stock?
CRWV remains a compelling long-term AI infrastructure story, but it is prudent not to chase the stock immediately ahead of second-quarter earnings. The company's enormous backlog, triple-digit revenue growth and major customer commitments are positives. However, heavy capital requirements, substantial interest expense, continuing GAAP losses and a demanding valuation make the stock particularly sensitive to earnings guidance.
The underlying business remains compelling, but the earnings-related risk is too high to make aggressive pre-earnings purchase attractive. Therefore, new investors are advised to wait for the second-quarter results. If you already own the stock and have a long-term horizon, you can hold on to it.
View the Zacks #1 Rank List
Image: Bigstock
CRWV Stock Ahead of Q2 Earnings: Buy, Sell, or Wait for the Results?
Key Takeaways
CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV - Free Report) is scheduled to report second-quarter 2026 results on Aug. 11, 2026, after market close.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the bottom line in the to-be-reported quarter is pegged at a loss of $1.17 per share, widening 10.9% in the past 60 days and 333.3% from the prior-year reported number.
The consensus estimate for total revenues is $2.5 billion, indicating a 109.2% year-over-year increase. Management expects second-quarter revenues in the $2.45-$2.6 billion band.
CRWV’s earnings missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the trailing four quarters, while beating once, with the average surprise being 3.8%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
What Our Model Predicts for CRWV
Our proven model does not predict an earnings beat for CRWV this time around. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy), or 3 (Hold) increases the chances of an earnings beat. This is not the case here. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they are reported with our Earnings ESP Filter.
CRWV has an Earnings ESP of -12.45% and a Zacks Rank #3 at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
What to Expect From CRWV’s Q2 Earnings
CRWV heads into its second-quarter earnings with a powerful long-term AI infrastructure story, along with high expectations and significant financial risk. Its business is built around providing GPUs, data-center capacity and cloud infrastructure to customers developing and deploying AI models. The company's first-quarter numbers demonstrated just how rapidly demand is expanding, as it secured more than $40 billion in new commitments, grew its backlog to nearly $100 billion and delivered 112% year-over-year sales growth, while surpassing 1 GW of active power capacity.
Demand for inference-ready compute is accelerating, driving strong backlog growth, enterprise AI adoption and long-term margin and earnings potential. CoreWeave plans to expand its power footprint through leases and self-built sites, with its first self-build facility expected online later this year, while its NVIDIA (NVDA - Free Report) partnership supports further expansion and long-term growth. In the first quarter, CRWV raised $2 billion from NVIDIA, followed by more than $10 billion in additional debt and equity in the second quarter, with strong oversubscription highlighting robust investor confidence in its growth.
CoreWeave Inc. Price and EPS Surprise
CoreWeave Inc. price-eps-surprise | CoreWeave Inc. Quote
CRWV expects second-quarter adjusted operating income of $30–$90 million, with margins improving from first-quarter lows. The near-term pressure is timing-related, as new deployments incur costs before generating revenue, with contribution margins typically normalizing to the mid-20% range by month three. Nonetheless, CoreWeave's biggest strength is also one of its biggest risks. Building AI data centers and acquiring GPUs requires enormous capital expenditures. The company therefore cannot be evaluated like a conventional software company with high gross margins and relatively modest capital requirements.
First-quarter revenue growth was impressive, but CoreWeave still posted a $740 million GAAP net loss. Interest expense alone was approximately $536 million. Adjusted EBITDA was much stronger at $1.16 billion, but the difference between EBITDA and bottom-line profitability highlights the company's heavy financing burden. CRWV’s rising debt, interest costs and heavy CapEx could pressure near-term profitability, with second quarter interest expense of $650–$730 million and CapEx of $7–$9 billion, partly reflecting higher component costs.
Key Quarterly Business Updates
In June, CRWV announced that it had become the first AI cloud provider to complete the bring-up and full system-level validation of NVIDIA Vera Rubin NVL72, a next-generation AI platform. The achievement positions CRWV at the forefront of next-generation AI infrastructure, strengthening its competitive advantage in the rapidly expanding AI cloud market.
CRWV demonstrated the strength of its AI-native cloud platform in the MLPerf Training v6.0 benchmark, completing the training of the DeepSeek-V3 671B model in just 2.02 minutes using 8,192 NVIDIA GB300 NVL72 GPUs. This showcased the effectiveness of CoreWeave's AI native cloud architecture. It serves as a powerful validation of the company's AI cloud platform, poised to accelerate customer adoption while strengthening its competitive position.
CRWV Stock vs. Industry
CRWV has crashed 35.1% in the past year, underperforming the Zacks Internet Software industry’s decline of 13.5%. The stock has also lagged the Zacks Computer & Technology sector and the S&P 500’s growth of 31.5% and 24.1%, respectively.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The company has underperformed its peers and tech behemoths like Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) , which has declined 4.2% during the same time frame, while Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS - Free Report) , another strong contender in the AI infrastructure space, has risen 167.6%.
Key Valuation for CRWV
CRWV stock is not cheap, as its Value Style Score of D suggests a stretched valuation at this moment. In terms of Price/Book, CRWV shares are trading at 8.53X, higher than the Internet Software industry’s 4.98X, but it could mean more risk than opportunity.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
NBIS and MSFT shares are trading at multiples of 6.57X and 8.39X, respectively.
Investment Verdict: Buy, Hold or Fold CRWV Stock?
CRWV remains a compelling long-term AI infrastructure story, but it is prudent not to chase the stock immediately ahead of second-quarter earnings. The company's enormous backlog, triple-digit revenue growth and major customer commitments are positives. However, heavy capital requirements, substantial interest expense, continuing GAAP losses and a demanding valuation make the stock particularly sensitive to earnings guidance.
The underlying business remains compelling, but the earnings-related risk is too high to make aggressive pre-earnings purchase attractive. Therefore, new investors are advised to wait for the second-quarter results. If you already own the stock and have a long-term horizon, you can hold on to it.