CoreWeave (CRWV) Stock Jumps 4% as GF Securities Calls It a Long-Term AI Winner

TLDR

• GF Securities initiated CoreWeave (CRWV) with a Buy rating and a $162 price target on Thursday.
• CRWV rose 4% in premarket trading following the new coverage.
• The analyst cited CoreWeave’s GPU deployment, AI-only focus, and long-term agreements with major hyperscalers as key strengths.
• Global AI data center capacity is forecast to reach 283 GW by 2030, up from roughly 122 GW in 2025.
• Major institutional investors including Vanguard and Invesco have sharply increased their positions in CRWV in recent quarters.

CoreWeave (CRWV) picked up a fresh vote of confidence Thursday morning when GF Securities started coverage with a Buy rating and a $162 price target. The stock jumped 4% in premarket trading on the news.

CoreWeave, Inc. Class A Common Stock, CRWV

Analyst Michelle Jing at GF Securities described CoreWeave as a “long-term winner in the AI infra boom,” pointing to its first-mover position in GPU deployment and its exclusive focus on AI workloads.

CRWV opened at $101.28 on Thursday. The stock has a 52-week range of $63.80 to $187.00 and a market cap of around $45.3 billion.

Jing flagged four reasons for her optimism: accelerating demand for AI buildouts, a strong backlog that underpins 2026–2027 revenue forecasts, declining debt financing costs, and the expectation that profitability will “inflect sharply” as large contracts mature. She expects the company to reach profitability by 2028.

The analyst also pointed to the broader opportunity for so-called neoclouds. Global AI data center capacity is expected to more than double from around 122 GW in 2025 to 283 GW by 2030, driven by expansion from major cloud providers and companies like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Institutional Money Moving In

The GF Securities note comes as institutional investors continue to build positions. Vanguard boosted its stake in CoreWeave by 275.6% in Q4, bringing its holding to nearly 28 million shares worth roughly $2 billion.

Proficio Capital Partners and Invesco also made large moves, with Proficio increasing its position by over 446,000% in Q3 and Invesco up more than 55,000%. Both moves largely reflected new or near-new positions being established.

DNB Asset Management opened a smaller position in Q4, buying 32,849 shares valued at about $2.35 million.

Analyst Landscape: Mixed But Leaning Bullish

The broader analyst community has mixed views on CRWV. Of 33 analysts covering the stock, 19 have a Buy rating, 12 have a Hold, and two rate it a Sell. The average price target sits at $129.63.

Citigroup raised its target from $155 to $158 last week, maintaining a Buy. JPMorgan moved its target from $90 to $105 with a Neutral rating. DA Davidson, on the other hand, cut its target to $100 from $175 and kept a Neutral.

Sanford C. Bernstein holds the most bearish position on the Street, with an Underperform rating and a $67 target.

On the negative side, analysts and investors are watching a few risk factors closely. A new Blackstone-Google AI venture is seen as a direct competitive threat. DA Davidson has raised concerns about valuation, debt, and widening losses.

CoreWeave posted revenue of $1.57 billion in its most recent quarter, up 110.4% year over year. But it missed earnings estimates, reporting a loss of $0.89 per share against a consensus of -$0.61. Analysts as a group project a full-year loss of $4.15 per share.

Separately, major shareholder Magnetar Financial sold 159,168 CRWV shares on May 7 at an average price of $129.91, reducing its stake by 19.09%. COO Sachin Jain also sold 14,750 shares on May 8 at $118.61, a transaction tied to tax obligations from vesting equity awards.

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