CoreWeave ‘Bobs and Weaves’ Past AI Slowdown Fears With a Q3 Beat and Raised Guidance

“Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in.” - Michael Corleone CRWV paper hands

Bad news, haters (including me on Friday): The CW (read: CoreWeave) didn’t hear no bell. 

On Tuesday, the GPU landlord beat on revenue, lost less money than expected, raised its full-year guidance, and then promptly… did not eat sh*t. Shares popped about 7% after hours.

Revenue went sicko mode, up 168% to $3.66B vs. the $3.55B Wall Street expected. The adjusted loss came in at 95 cents a share vs. $1.16 expected. The actual net loss ballooned to $709M from $110M a year ago, which, excuse me, how much?

As for 2026, CoreWeave bumped its outlook to $13B-$13.3B in revenue and $1.275B-$1.375B in adjusted operating income, up from $12.4B-$13.2B and $960M-$1.15B in August. Analysts were looking for $12.86B and $1.07B. Friendly reminder, its revenue backlog was $104B in June. It’s now $132.5B. Friendlier reminder, it’s still not too late to major in gigawatt sales…

Of course, this is the same company that lost over 40% of its value in the past month, as investors bailed on AI infrastructure and rising rates scared lenders off. Some of its bond yields recently topped 16% (read: credit card APR territory). Per Nitin Agrawal, the guy holding the company Amex, “At current yields, we do not intend to issue additional parent-level unsecured debt through 2027.” In other words, AI is still expensive AF.

Instead, CoreWeave plans to cover most of 2027 with customer prepayments and financing from hardware partners. Our favorite ex-crypto miner (read: CEO Mike Intrator) says CoreWeave could also sell all of its capacity to buyers already “in the queue.” It’s just edging “choosing to be patient” for “better economic output.” That’s with nearly $47B in debt and $37B-$39B in capex to yeet this year.

Mike’s not sweating the midterms, either. Last week, voters nuked dozens of data center initiatives, and in Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa ousted Republican Gov. Greg Abbott after campaigning against the state’s 20-year tax breaks for big data centers. Per Mike, almost all of CoreWeave’s power is already online or permitted, and if construction slows, “GPU pricing may stay higher for longer.” Translation: go ahead, keep voting against data centers. The CW will just charge more for the ones it already built.

Oh, and speaking of hardware partners, CoreWeave leans hard on Nvidia for both GPUs and cash. Nvidia face-planted nearly 10% to start the week after Jensen Huang admitted to getting his Don Draper on with an alleged Chinese spy. Now, Nvidia’s board has hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to figure out whether national security or company secrets were compromised (read: Blackwell pillow talk).

Meanwhile, key customer Anthropic is set to hit the Nasdaq next week at a valuation of around $1.4T (cuatro comas, baby). Mike’s take: “We’re going to have long-term relationships with the AI labs.”

Long-term relationships, huh? Bold talk from a company the bond market just pulled out of.

Until next time, friends…

 

At the time of publishing, Stocks.News does not hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.