This looks like the massive post-lockup CoreWeave selling that traders were worried about
More than 10 million shares of CoreWeave changed hands in after-hours trading on Thursday, pushing the recently slammed stock down yet again prior to a nice bounce at the open on Friday.
This really looks like the post-IPO lockup expiry selling that traders were worried about (and we had long warned about) when they sent shares of the AI cloud computing company tumbling more than 30% in the two trading days following the release of second-quarter earnings.
As a reminder, CoreWeave’s post-IPO lockup expired as of “the close of trading on the second trading day after the date that we publicly announce earnings for the second quarter,” or in other words, two days after Tuesday — that is, after the close on Thursday.
This was the most activity in the stock from 4:01 p.m. through 7:59 p.m. ET in its short history as a publicly traded company, outstripping volumes seen in the wake of both its Q1 and Q2 quarterly results.
We saw massive trades go off during this period — 1 million shares, 850,000 shares, 672,176 shares, 378,000 shares, and so on. In all, there were 11 trades in excess of 100,000 shares.
And the lion’s share of this activity took place on the bid side, indicating motivated sellers exiting their positions. As a reminder, the “bid” is the highest price a buyer is willing to pay, and the ask, which is higher than the bid, is the lowest price a seller is willing to accept.