CoreWeave Stock Tumbles On Capex Bump, Soft Guidance: Retail Undeterred

• CoreWeave’s revenue in Q1 more than doubled and surpassed analysts' expectations; Q2 forecast was softer than expected.
• CoreWeave said 2026 capital expenditures would be higher than it had projected earlier.
• CRWV stock dropped 10% in post-market hours; retail sentiment moved sharply upward, to ‘extremely bullish.’

CoreWeave, Inc. forecast second-quarter revenue below analysts’ expectations and said its capital expenditure this year would be higher than previously forecast due to increasing component prices, triggering a selloff in shares. Still, retail traders returned upbeat, citing growth prospects and calling the dip an overreaction.

CRWV dropped 10% in overnight trading heading into Friday. If the move holds in the regular session, it would mark the worst single-day drop in about a month.

CoreWeave’s quarterly report forced investors to reassess their outlook on the company, as strong revenue and order growth were accompanied by sharply rising expenses.

In recent months, Meta Platforms committed $21 billion for CoreWeave’s cloud capacity through 2032, with the cloud operator also signing new multi-billion-dollar deals with Anthropic and Jane Street.

Demand for the so-called neocloud providers such as CoreWeave and Nebius has surged over the last year as tech companies race to secure the hardware and cloud capacity to support AI development and user growth. Microsoft, OpenAI, Meta, and Nvidia are among CoreWeave's largest customers.

CRWV Q1 Earnings Summary

The company’s total revenue surged 105% to $2.08 billion in the first quarter, beating analysts’ estimate of $1.97 billion from LSEG/Reuters. 

Operating expenses more than doubled to $2.22 billion, a result of continuing ​to scale active power capacity. Backlog, which denotes orders booked but not yet realized as revenue, jumped to $99.4 billion as of March 31, compared with $66.8 billion at the end of December.

Last quarter, CoreWeave added more than 400 megawatts of contracted power, bringing its total to more than 3.5 gigawatts.

For Q2, the company expects revenue in the range of $2.45 billion to $2.6 billion, below analysts' estimate of $2.69 billion. The focus item, still, was the capital expenditure. 

Not only did CoreWeave's capex increased 90% sequentially to $7.70 billion in Q1, but the company also said the 2026 figure would be slightly higher. The company now expects full-year capital expenditures in a range of $31 billion to $35 billion, up from a previous low end of $30 billion.

“In the last six, nine months, there has been an acute shortage of certain components that have moved up,” CEO Michael Intrator said on the analyst call, adding that the structure of its supply contracts offers the company some insulation from price volatility.

Retail View On CRWV Goes Up Sharply

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for CRWV flipped to ‘extremely bullish’ from ‘neutral’ the previous day.

“Buying Coreweave now is similar to buying csco in 1989 or cell tower company AMT in 2001 at 1.00,” a trader said, signaling that it's still early days for neocloud companies and the upside potential is huge.

“Everybody is worried about today's debt. Well 8 years ago the Oilers gave McDavid 12 million a year. Today that contract looks mighty savy… I think it's bullcrap this stock will be fine with NVDA backing and Blackstone owning notes.”

Another wrote: “CoreWeave’s sell-off is a market misread. The business isn’t demand-constrained — the $99.4B backlog proves that.” Still, some traders remained concerned of the growing leverage and bottom-line pressure, with one saying, “losses and debt. This goes below 100 soon enough.”

CoreWeave went public in March 2025. The stock has surged 80% this year.

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