Applied Digital (APLD) Stock: Analyst Says Buy the Dip Ahead of Earnings Wednesday

TLDR

• Roth MKM analyst Darren Aftahi reiterated a Buy rating on APLD with a $58 price target, calling it his “top pick.”
• Q3 FY26, reporting April 8, will be the first full quarter of lease revenue for Applied Digital.
• Wall Street expects Q3 revenue of ~$75.47M, up ~43% year-over-year, but a wider adjusted loss per share of $0.15.
• Applied Digital has signed deals worth 600 MW of capacity and is targeting ~$1B in annualized NOI over five years.
• NVIDIA has exited its stake in APLD, and the company recently priced a $2.15B senior secured notes offering at 6.75%.

Applied Digital is heading into its fiscal third-quarter earnings on April 8 with fresh analyst backing. Roth MKM’s Darren Aftahi has reiterated his Buy rating and $58 price target on the stock, naming APLD his “top pick” in coverage.

Applied Digital Corporation, APLD

At $24.49, the stock sits well below that target — implying over 130% upside if Aftahi’s thesis plays out.

The analyst pointed to Q3 FY26 as a turning point. It will be the first complete quarter where lease revenue is fully reflected in the financials, making it a key read on how the company’s data center deals are actually landing.

Wall Street is expecting revenue of around $75.47 million for the quarter, up roughly 43% from the same period last year. On the bottom line, analysts forecast an adjusted loss per share of $0.15, wider than the $0.08 loss in the prior-year quarter.

Aftahi flagged that CoreWeave’s recent A3 credit upgrade could have a knock-on benefit for Applied Digital — tighter bond spreads and lower borrowing costs for APLD itself.

The DF1 facility in Louisiana is now breaking ground, with development financing from Macquarie already deployed. Aftahi said he expects a third hyperscaler lease announcement to come, and that any dip in the stock should be treated as a buying opportunity.

Applied Digital has signed capacity deals totaling 600 MW. The company is targeting approximately $1 billion in annualized net operating income over a five-year window — what Aftahi described as a “scalable platform.”

Debt Offering and Financial Structure

On the capital markets side, Applied Digital recently priced a $2.15 billion offering of senior secured notes through its subsidiary APLD ComputeCo 2 LLC. The notes carry a 6.75% interest rate, mature in 2031, and were priced at 98 cents on the dollar.

Proceeds are earmarked for the development of a 200-megawatt critical IT load facility at the Polaris Forge 2 AI data center campus in North Dakota, as well as debt service reserves and transaction costs.

Separately, Babcock & Wilcox landed a $2.4 billion contract with Base Electron to supply 1.2 gigawatts of new generation capacity — including four 300-megawatt natural gas-fired boiler systems — to power Applied Digital’s AI Factory campuses.

NVIDIA Exit and Analyst Sentiment

One headline that caught attention: NVIDIA has fully exited its stake in Applied Digital, as disclosed in its most recent 13F filing. The move followed Applied Digital’s debt offering announcement, which initially weighed on the stock.

Despite that, the broader analyst community remains bullish. All 10 Wall Street analysts covering APLD have a Buy rating, with an average price target of $52.22 — implying around 113% upside from current levels.

The stock has pulled back 4.76% over the past week but has returned roughly 292% over the past year.

Investors will be watching the April 8 earnings call closely for updates on new lease deals, hyperscaler commitments, and management’s outlook on capital deployment.

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