TeraWulf Adds 6% on Nvidia's Guide, Applied Digital 4.5%

TeraWulf (NASDAQ: WULF) traded at $16.93, up 6.01%, and Applied Digital (NASDAQ: APLD) at $28.07, up 4.47%, on Thursday 27 August 2026, after Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) reported Q2 FY2027 results Wednesday afternoon and its stock rose 7.70% to $225.81.

Nvidia's quarter did the work, and two much smaller companies collected the pay. TeraWulf Inc. (NASDAQ: WULF) traded at $16.93 on Thursday morning, up 6.01% from Wednesday's $15.97 close, while Applied Digital Corp. (NASDAQ: APLD) changed hands at $28.07, a gain of 4.47% against a prior close of $26.87. Neither company reported anything. The catalyst belonged to Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA), whose Q2 FY2027 results landed after Wednesday's close and sent its own shares to $225.81, up 7.70% from $209.66, as of 15:15 GMT on 27 August 2026.

This is the read-across trade in its purest form. When the largest seller of AI accelerators tells the market that demand is running ahead of expectations, the buy order does not stop at Nvidia. It travels down the chain to whoever owns the buildings, the transformers and the interconnection queue positions that those chips have to sit inside. TeraWulf and Applied Digital both belong to that category: power-first datacenter operators that pivoted from bitcoin mining infrastructure toward leasing high-density capacity to AI tenants.

How a single earnings report reprices the landlords

The logic investors are applying is straightforward, even if the arithmetic behind it is not. Nvidia's revenue and forward guidance are a proxy for how many accelerators will be shipped and therefore how many megawatts of cooled, energised, contracted space must exist to receive them. Chips without power are inventory. That makes companies with energised capacity and grid interconnection rights a scarce input rather than a commodity landlord.

What the market cannot do on a Thursday morning is convert Nvidia's guidance into a specific contracted revenue figure for either name. No new lease, no new tenant and no new megawatt total was announced by TeraWulf or Applied Digital alongside this move. The gains are sympathy gains — a re-rating of the probability that existing and future capacity gets absorbed at attractive rates, not a disclosure of incremental business. That distinction matters for anyone deciding whether a 6% day is a repricing or a rental.

The size of the move relative to the tape underlines how leveraged these names are to the theme. The Nasdaq 100 tracker (QQQ) was at $719.45, up 1.14%, with the S&P 500 proxy (SPY) at $770.81, up 0.62%, and the Dow tracker (DIA) at $536.12, up 0.35%. TeraWulf's advance was therefore running at roughly five times the Nasdaq 100's gain on the day — a beta profile that cuts both directions when the compute narrative wobbles, as it did earlier this cycle.

The intraday tape says the enthusiasm was front-loaded

Both stocks traded above their current prints earlier in the session. TeraWulf's day range ran from $16.45 to $17.32, meaning the high represented a gain of about 8.5% over Wednesday's close before some of it was given back. Applied Digital ranged from $27.28 to $28.65. Nvidia itself printed as high as $227.31 and as low as $220.90, holding a large part of its move but not the whole of it.

That pattern — a gap up, a push higher in the first hour, then a partial fade — is characteristic of read-across rallies. The initial buyers are momentum and systematic flows responding to the headline; the sellers who show up afterwards are the ones asking what changed at the specific company. In TeraWulf's case, the answer is that the demand environment for its product looks firmer, which is real but not contractual.

By comparison, the benchmarks were sitting at or near the top of their own daily ranges — QQQ's high of $719.50 against a last price of $719.45, DIA printing its high at $536.12 — suggesting the broad market absorbed Nvidia's numbers steadily while the high-beta satellites did their spiking early. The move was first flagged by 24/7 Wall St.

What separates a contracted megawatt from a hopeful one

For investors trying to distinguish signal from sympathy in this group, the questions are the same ones that will be answered in the next round of company filings rather than in Nvidia's.

Contracted versus energised capacity. A signed lease on space that will not have power for two years is a different asset from a live hall with a tenant paying rent today. Both get counted as "pipeline" in investor decks.
Counterparty quality. AI-datacenter leases are only as good as the credit behind them. A hyperscaler tenant on a long lease is a bond; a venture-funded model lab is an option.
Cost of capital. Building high-density capacity is enormously capital-hungry. Every equity or convertible raise to fund it dilutes the per-share value of the demand these stocks are rallying on.
Power price and grid access. The moat for both companies is electricity at a price and a location where it can actually be delivered. Interconnection timelines, not chip supply, are frequently the binding constraint.

None of those variables moved on Thursday. Nvidia's print changed the demand assumption sitting on top of them.

Why the compute trade keeps reopening

The recurring pattern of this cycle is that the AI infrastructure complex trades as a single instrument with several tickers. When the bellwether guides higher, the power, cooling, networking and datacenter names all catch a bid regardless of individual disclosure; when the bellwether stumbles or capital-spending discipline is invoked, the same names fall hardest and fastest because their valuations embed years of uncontracted absorption.

TeraWulf and Applied Digital are among the most levered expressions of that trade because their transition stories are still in progress. Their asset bases were assembled for one purpose — cheap power for hashing — and are being redirected to another with far more demanding technical specifications and far larger capital requirements. The upside is that the redirection targets a customer set with an urgent, funded need. The risk is that execution takes longer, costs more and dilutes further than the current share prices imply.

What to watch from here: whether either company converts Thursday's mood into an announced lease or expansion, whether the gains hold into the close after both stocks faded from their intraday highs, and whether the broad indices keep their bid. When the Nasdaq 100 is up 1.14% and a small-cap datacenter developer is up six, the developer is not being repriced on its own fundamentals. It is being repriced on someone else's.

Frequently asked questions

Why did TeraWulf and Applied Digital rise if they did not report earnings?

Both rallied on a read-across from Nvidia's Q2 FY2027 results, delivered Wednesday afternoon. Nvidia's numbers are treated as a proxy for AI accelerator demand, which in turn implies demand for the powered datacenter capacity TeraWulf and Applied Digital develop. Neither company announced new leases, tenants or capacity alongside Thursday's move.

How much did each stock move on 27 August 2026?

As of 15:15 GMT, TeraWulf traded at $16.93, up 6.01% from a prior close of $15.97, with a day range of $16.45 to $17.32. Applied Digital was at $28.07, up 4.47% from $26.87, ranging between $27.28 and $28.65. Nvidia itself was at $225.81, up 7.70% from $209.66.

Did the gains hold through the session?

Not entirely. Both stocks traded above their mid-session prints earlier in the day. TeraWulf reached $17.32 before easing to $16.93, and Applied Digital touched $28.65 before trading at $28.07. Nvidia's high was $227.31 against a last price of $225.81, so part of the initial enthusiasm was given back.

What do TeraWulf and Applied Digital actually do?

Both are power-first datacenter operators that built asset bases around cheap electricity for bitcoin mining and are redirecting that capacity toward high-density AI computing tenants. Their competitive advantage rests on secured power, grid interconnection rights and energised space, which are frequently scarcer than the chips themselves.

How does the move compare with the broad market?

The Nasdaq 100 tracker QQQ was up 1.14% at $719.45, the S&P 500 proxy SPY up 0.62% at $770.81 and the Dow tracker DIA up 0.35% at $536.12. TeraWulf's 6.01% advance was roughly five times the Nasdaq 100's gain, illustrating how leveraged these names are to the AI infrastructure theme in both directions.

What should investors watch next in these names?

The key items are company-specific disclosures rather than Nvidia's: contracted versus merely energised megawatts, the credit quality of tenants signing leases, how much new equity or convertible debt is issued to fund construction, and interconnection timelines with local grids. None of those variables changed because of Nvidia's earnings report.

Sources

TeraWulf Jumps 6% as NVIDIA’s Guidance Reignites the Compute Trade, Applied Digital Gains 5% — 24/7 Wall St

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