What Happened?
Shares of digital infrastructure provider Applied Digital (NASDAQ: APLD) jumped 6.1% in the afternoon session after the stock's positive momentum continued as the company announced it had entered into a major lease agreement valued at approximately $5 billion with a U.S.-based investment grade hyperscaler.
The deal, set for an estimated 15-year term, covered 200 megawatts of capacity at the company's Polaris Forge 2 campus in North Dakota. This facility was purpose-built to support the customer's artificial intelligence and high-performance computing infrastructure. The agreement significantly expanded Applied Digital's contracted revenue and long-term visibility, bringing its total leased capacity in North Dakota to 600 megawatts. Following the news, investment firm Craig-Hallum raised its price target on the company's shares.
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What Is The Market Telling Us
Applied Digital’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 92 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was about 23 hours ago when the stock dropped 10.1% on the news that new trade tensions and disappointing earnings from major tech companies weighed heavily on investor sentiment.
A key driver was the news that the White House is considering new restrictions on Chinese exports that use U.S. software, a move that could significantly impact technology companies. This uncertainty over escalating trade tensions created a broad sense of worry in the market. Simultaneously, shares of the semiconductor giant Texas Instruments dropped 6% after its latest earnings and future revenue forecast both came in weaker than expected, which is a big concern for the health of the tech industry. This poor performance from Texas Instruments immediately dragged down the entire semiconductor sector, causing other major chipmakers like Advanced Micro Devices and Micron Technology to also see significant declines.
Compounding the bad news, streaming service Netflix saw its stock slump 9% after it missed its earnings targets, partly blaming a tax dispute in Brazil. The combined effect of renewed trade war fears and the direct evidence of underperformance from influential companies in the technology sector was enough to push the major market indexes lower.
Applied Digital is up 320% since the beginning of the year, but at $32.77 per share, it is still trading 13.2% below its 52-week high of $37.76 from October 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Applied Digital’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $227,571.
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