CoreWeave Rally Hits Wall As Goldman Says “Execution Bar Was Quite High”

Shares of CoreWeave fell in premarket trading on Wednesday after the provider of artificial intelligence infrastructure reported solid revenue growth and backlog, but missed on capital expenditures and issued guidance that fell short of Wall Street’s most bullish expectations.

Investor focus this morning appears to be centered around CoreWeave’s 2Q operating margin, which contracted sharply from 20% to 2% year-over-year, primarily reflecting $145 million in stock-based compensation, while total debt increased to $11.1 billion. 

CoreWeave reported 2Q revenue of $1.21 billion, more than tripling from $395.4 million a year ago, while narrowing its net loss to $290.5 million from $323 million versus the same quarter last year. 

CoreWeave 2Q25 Earnings Summary

• Shares fell 9% in premarket trading as quarterly net loss widened 20x to $130.8M, driven by margin pressure from rapid AI datacenter expansion.

• Earnings Miss: EPS -.60 vs. -.21 expected.

• Revenue Beat: $1.21B vs. $1.08B expected.

• Profitability: Adj. EBITDA $753.2M vs. $249.8M a year ago.

• Backlog: $30.1B.

Bloomberg Intelligence’s first take on CoreWeave, which by the way is a next-generation cloud infrastructure provider specializing in high-performance computing workloads rather than the broad, general-purpose services offered by traditional hyperscalers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud, noted lower-than-expected CapEx and an above-consensus adjusted operating margin for the quarter. Analysts see this as a likely move to address the $30 billion backlog, which jumped roughly $4 billion sequentially. 

Analysts had anticipated a stronger outlook, especially given the stock’s sharp rally since its March debut:

Guidance Q3

• Revenue: $1.26B to $1.30B (in line with $1.25B expected).

• Adj. Operating Income: $160M to $190M. Margins temporarily pressured by capacity ramp-up. Q3 CapEx: $2.9B to $3.4B. Q3 Interest Expense: $350M to $390M. Stock-Based Comp: Slightly elevated through 2025.

Full-Year 2025 Outlook

• Revenue: Raised to $5.15B to $5.35B (vs. $5.04B expected).

• Adj. Operating Income: Unchanged at $800M to $830M.

• CapEx: $20B to $23B.

“We are scaling rapidly as we look to meet the unprecedented demand for AI,” CEO Michael Intrator wrote in a statement. 

Here is Goldman analyst Kash Rangan’s first take on the earnings, which pointed out “the bar for execution was quite high“, hence the stock selling off in premarket trading. He maintained a “Neutral” rating on the stock with a 12-month $120 price target. 

Pro subs can find Rangan’s full note in the usual place.