Oct 19, 2026: insiders add shares at the low, and the sector bounces
The stock traded at $18.51 when premarket trading opened at 4am and stayed between about $18.30 and $18.80 until 7am. The Cummins Form 4 was accepted at 7:06am and the Zhang Form 4 at 7:11am. By 7:15am they had touched $19.31, and they reached a premarket high of $19.67 around 8:40am.
It opened at $19.39 and dipped to the day's low of $18.92 in the first ten minutes, still 4.8% above Friday's close. It spent most of the morning between about $19.15 and $19.90, then pushed to a high of $20.135 at about 11:40am. At 11:49am it was $20.07, up 11.2%, on 17.2 million shares.
What pushed it up:
- Open-market purchases by the top two executives. Both Form 4s carry code P, a purchase in the market, not a grant or an option exercise. Zhang's shares were bought in trades from $18.40 to $19.16. Cummins paid $18.04, within a cent of the $18.05 close. Our guide on how to track insider buying with Form 4 explains why code P matters.
- A contrast with recent filings. Cummins's previous Form 4, for Oct 10, showed 100,000 stock units vesting and 39,350 shares withheld for taxes at $23.68. Director Richard Nottenburg sold 31,250 shares on Oct 13 at a weighted average of $21.84. Monday's filings were the first purchases in that run.
- A sector rebound. 24/7 Wall St. described the rally as "reversing last week's financing-driven selloff," and Pluang reported the same rebound across power-backed data center names.
The peer group rose about half as much. At about 11:48am, against the Oct 16 close:
| Stock or fund | Change |
|---|---|
| Applied Digital (APLD) | +11.2% |
| IREN (IREN) | +6.1% |
| TeraWulf (WULF) | +5.7% |
| Nebius (NBIS) | +4.5% |
| Core Scientific (CORZ) | +4.4% |
| Cipher (CIFR) | +3.7% |
| Bitcoin miners ETF (WGMI) | +3.7% |
| CoreWeave (CRWV) | +3.2% |
| Invesco QQQ (QQQ) | +1.9% |
| Data center ETF (DTCR) | +0.7% |
After the gain, RSI(14) stood at 36, the shares sat 23% below their 50-day average and 37% below their 200-day average, volume by 11:49am was already 71% of its 20-day average of 24.1 million shares, and the stock was 60% below its 52-week high of $50.72, set on May 28. Our page of today's biggest stock moves covers other names moving on the day.
Why it fell last week
The stock closed at $25.34 on Oct 6, the day before results. It fell in six of the next eight sessions to $18.05, including 9.4% on Oct 14 and 11.5% on Oct 16. 24/7 Wall St. tied the slide to investors pulling back from "debt-funded AI data center builders," and reported that JPMorgan cut the company's project finance bonds to Neutral from Overweight that week, citing an expected supply overhang as Applied Digital borrows for its pipeline. The same worries hit the rest of the group, as we covered in why IREN stock fell, why TeraWulf stock fell and why CoreWeave stock fell. CoreWeave is also the tenant at Polaris Forge 1, so its credit matters directly here.
The numbers
| Q1 FY2026 | Q1 FY2027 | |
|---|---|---|
| Total revenue | $80.9M | $341.9M |
| HPC Hosting revenue | $262.6M | |
| Data Center Hosting revenue | $37.9M | $37.8M |
| Adjusted EBITDA | $0.5M | $64.4M |
| Net loss, continuing operations | $(18.5)M | $(221.0)M |
| Adjusted EPS | $(0.03) | $(0.01) |
The quarter ended Aug 31, 2026. Of the HPC Hosting revenue, $183.5 million was tenant fit-out services and $65.8 million was base rent, so recurring rent is still a small share. The GAAP loss is large and includes non-cash fair value losses, stock compensation and rising interest. At quarter end the company had $3.7 billion of cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash against $6.4 billion of debt. Our explainer on the debt-to-equity ratio covers how to read a balance sheet like this.
The bull case
- Contracted revenue. About 1.41 GW of critical IT load is leased across five campuses, with about $36 billion of base-term revenue, or $86 billion if all renewals are exercised. Four of the five tenants are investment-grade or tier-one investment-grade hyperscalers.
- Capacity is coming online. Polaris Forge 1 has 250 MW live after the second 75 MW phase of Building 2 was delivered on Oct 1. Building 3, 150 MW, is under construction.
- Insiders added at the low. Cummins now holds 5,874,453 shares directly and reports 17,590,238 more through Cummins Family Ltd.
- Analysts are far above the price. The consensus target is $61.20, with a range of $22 to $90. The market value is about $6.1 billion, or 7.1 times sales.
The risks
- More borrowing. Polaris Forge 3, Delta Forge 1 and Delta Forge 2 still need financing. CFO Saidal Mohmand said on the Oct 7 call, per 24/7 Wall St., "Our goal remains to maintain one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry." The bond market's response to the next deal will test that. Our explainer on the debt maturity wall covers refinancing risk.
- Tenant concentration. CoreWeave, whose debt drove last week's selling, leases Polaris Forge 1.
- Short interest. Short sellers hold 20.8% of the float. That can lift a rebound and deepen a drop; see our explainer on short interest and squeeze risk.
- Losses. The net loss from continuing operations was $221.0 million in the quarter, and 24/7 Wall St. warned that "a rebound after a steep selloff can fade quickly."
What comes next
- Financing of the next campuses. The coupon on the next secured notes, against 7.000% on the Polaris Forge 1 Building 3 notes, is the clearest test of whether credit worries are easing.
- More Form 4s. Further purchases by directors or officers, or sales, will show whether Monday's buying was a one-off.
- Polaris Forge 2 by December 31, 2026. The company expects initial operations there to lift delivered North Dakota capacity to 300 MW by year-end.
- The fiscal second-quarter report. The company has not set a date. It will show how much rent the new buildings add.