CoreWeave Earnings Review
I have OTM calls and not shares for a reason.
Welcome to CoreWeave earnings
The cool thing about CoreWeave is that their earnings are super high signal, unlike a lot of other AI infra plays.
This is because of two main reasons:
CoreWeave just gives you a ton of visibility. On the Q4 call, they guide it for 2026 full-year revenue, 2027 revenue, exit ARR for 2026 and 2027, and the active power exiting each year. You could literally draw a line on the graph with management statements.
CoreWeave’s demand itself is a leading indicator for AI economics. Other companies that are upstream usually have much more predictability and certainty and therefore are lagging indicators instead of leading ones. While Memory, Optics, and Semi-Caps generally have revenue dynamics stemming from supply chain shenanigans, CoreWeave’s topline and backlog are completely dependent on end user demand for AI, which makes them much more unpredictable and high signal.
I made a nice tier list for all of CoreWeave’s key KPIs that are announced during earnings every quarter.
First is the S-tier. This includes the backlog, FY26 and FY27 revenue guide, and ARR Exiting FY26 and FY27.
The reason these are S-tier is simple: it’s literally revenue. Top-line growth is a majority of what CoreWeave is valued on, and it is the very first leading indicator for downstream end-user AI demand.
After announcing the Meta, Anthropic, and Jane Street deals, sellside pencilled in around $100 billion of backlog, which is exactly in line with what they announced. No surprise there. But the all-important revenue guide and exit ARR are still yet to be announced as they are on the call, not the print.
Second is the A tier. This includes near-term revenue from this quarter and next quarter, active and contracted power, which are derivatives of future revenue, and finally operating margins, as those are the most important margin number for CoreWeave. Here, they had a pretty solid top line beat, probably in line with by side whisper, though, while having it real beat on contracted power, which is a good forward-looking signal. The more important metrics are announced on the call.
Finally, we have the B tier, which are just nice to haves or second derivatives of A and S tier KPIs. You might notice gross margin is here. Why is that? Well, gross margin is very dependent on depreciation and revenue timing. As a result, the more often cited margin metric for CoreWeave is the operating margin, and gross margin usually takes a back seat to that.
And as expected, the stock does precisely nothing before the call. The call is where the real KPIs slide in.
The Call
By accessing this content, you acknowledge and agree to our terms and conditions. This research is not financial advice.
RIP
The two big headline misses were:
The Full-Year Revenue Guide, which was $12.5 billion (reiterated from last quarter’s earnings call) instead of $13.5 billion expected by consensus.
Q2 revenue guide, which was $2.5 billion versus $2.8 billion expected.
This is definitely a negative result, no doubt. I am disappointed. Below we get into:
The reasons behind the miss. Including capacity bring up speed, memory pricing, and margins/timing.
Three mitigants to the negative result.
My new confidence level in CoreWeave, whether or not my long-term thesis changed at all, and if I’m doing anything with my positioning.