CoreWeave (CRWV) shares plunged more than 11% in after-hours trading on May 8 after the AI cloud company reported first-quarter results that missed Wall Street’s bottom-line expectations. The stock fell to around $114, down from levels above $129 earlier that week.
CoreWeave posted a loss of $1.40 per share for Q1 2026, significantly wider than the analyst consensus of -$0.92. Revenue, however, was a bright spot — surging 127% year over year to $2.08 billion, ahead of the $1.97 billion estimate. The company also noted its revenue backlog grew and total active power exceeded one gigawatt during the period.
Despite the revenue beat, the earnings miss and cautious guidance for the rest of the year — citing rising infrastructure costs and intensifying AI cloud competition — weighed on investor sentiment. DA Davidson maintained a Buy rating with a $175 price target, but the immediate market reaction was stark.
Adding to the pressure, Magnetar Financial, a 10%+ owner, sold $370.45 million worth of CRWV stock on the same day as the earnings report. Filings showed sales of over 2.7 million shares at prices between $129 and $139, with an additional $20.7 million sold the day before. Over the last three months, insider sales at CoreWeave have totaled nearly $1.9 billion, pushing the company’s insider activity signal to “Negative” on TipRanks, even as shares have nearly doubled over the prior 12 months.
Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest, which had sold around $25 million of CoreWeave at higher prices just days earlier, stepped in to buy 113,076 shares on May 8 for $12.9 million. ARK had trimmed its AMD and Rocket Lab positions during the week while adding to genomics and defense names. The flagship ARK Innovation ETF remains under pressure, with a five-year annualized return of -6.17% compared to 13.45% for the S&P 500 and over $1.3 billion in net outflows over the past year.
