Higher interest rates may be a problem for the AI-native cloud provider given its 'unusually high exposure to debt financing,' analyst says
Shares of CoreWeave fell more than 14% over the past five trading days - their second streak of at least that length in less than a month.
Wall Street has long been wary of CoreWeave's investment-grade worthiness and financing strategies for the artificial-intelligence buildout, but recently the AI-native cloud provider may be facing a new set of pressures: fears over interest rates and memory prices.
CoreWeave's stock (CRWV) sank 3.5% on Wednesday to extend its losing streak to five sessions. It has dropped 14.3% during that stretch.
The latest streak - the stock had tumbled 19% amid a six-day losing streak through June 29 - comes along with a Reuters report that CoreWeave is exploring using financial derivatives, including put options, as a potential hedge against a shock drop in memory prices. A put option gives the owner the right to sell at a certain price after a predetermined period of time.
Before the June streak, the neocloud's stock hadn't seen a losing stretch of at least five sessions since early March.
"Investors may be weary of CoreWeave trying to boost its performance through financial derivatives at a time their core AI cloud business is seeing increased competition," D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria told MarketWatch.
CoreWeave signs long-term agreements with Micron Technology $(MU)$ and Sandisk $(SNDK)$ to buy memory, which often involve a price floor. As demand for memory has outpaced supply, prices have soared - leading to concerns over how long the shortage will last, and what protections CoreWeave has in the case of a price drop.
"We don't comment on speculation and have nothing further to add," CoreWeave said in an emailed statement to MarketWatch.
Seaport Research analyst Jay Goldberg told MarketWatch that a combination of the Reuters report and broader interest-rate concerns were contributing to the stock's weakness recently.
Fears of a rate hike intensified last week, after Federal Reserve minutes revealed officials had said there was an argument for raising interest rates in June. Traders have since dialed back expectations of a rate hike after U.S. inflation readings came in softer than expected.
See also: A slower AI payoff risks tipping the economy into recession, Apollo says
D.A. Davidson's Luria told MarketWatch that higher interest rates and constrained availability of capital may be "issues unique to CoreWeave" given its "unusually high exposure to debt financing."
-Hannah Pedone
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July 15, 2026 17:08 ET (21:08 GMT)
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