coindesk.com
IREN has dropped 47% from its 52-week high on Nov. 5, significantly underperforming mining and high-performance computing (HPC) peers, but investment bank B. Riley said it's keeping its buy rating and a $74 price target in a Monday report.
Miners are down about 25% on average over the same period, and GPU cloud names CoreWeave (CRWV) and Nebius (NBIS), are off 31% and 25%, respectively, the report, by analysts Nick Giles and Fedor Shabalin, noted.
The two framed IREN's recent price moves as a sentiment-driven reset in a volatile AI proxy rather than a break in fundamentals.
The stock was 8.2% lower in early trading, at $36.82.
The analysts flagged the stock's volatility in recent weeks. IREN has also moved sharply in the other direction, rallying 47% between Oct. 22 and Nov. 5 versus roughly 13% for its HPC peer group over the same stretch, while CoreWeave fell 6% and Nebius gained 19%.
The analysts argued this pattern shows the stock tends to overshoot both ways and that AI-driven drawdowns can offer entry points for investors willing to live with sector volatility.
On funding, IREN faces roughly a $2.7 billion gap between available capital and about $11.6 billion in planned HPC capex, including around $900 million for 23,000 GPUs at Prince George, $1.85 billion for 40,000 GPUs at Mackenzie and Canal Flats and $8.8 billion for 76,000 GPUs tied to Microsoft at the Childress campus, the analysts noted.
The bank tallies about $8.85 billion in capital already lined up, including Microsoft’s 20% prepayment of $1.94 billion, an estimated $2.5 billion of financing for 76,000 GB300 GPUs related to the Microsoft deal, and roughly $1 billion in cash and equivalents.
The report also highlighted recent balance sheet moves, including roughly $2.3 billion in new convertible senior notes due 2032 and 2033, alongside prior 2029 and 2031 issues.
The bank said net proceeds of about $2.27 billion from the latest convert deal funded a $201 million capped call with an initial cap price of $82.24 per share and the repurchase of about $227.7 million of 2030 notes and $316.6 million of 2029 notes for a combined purchase price of roughly $1.63 billion, including interest. In addition, the company's Dec. 2 registered direct offering of 39.7 million ordinary shares at $41.12 per share, completed Dec. 8, further strengthens the miner's capital stack.
Taken together, B. Riley characterizes the 47% pullback in IREN as a function of weak AI sentiment in a highly cyclical corner of the market, not a structural shift in the Microsoft-centric GPU build-out. The bank said the recent slide gives investors a chance to accumulate IREN ahead of a potential rebound in AI enthusiasm and continued progress on its HPC expansion.
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