IREN (NASDAQ:IREN) Shares Up 2.5% – Still a Buy?

IREN Limited (NASDAQ:IREN)’s share price rose 2.5% during trading on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $49.19 and last traded at $44.76. 71,056,190 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 66% from the average daily volume of 42,842,664 shares. The stock had previously closed at $43.67.

IREN News Roundup

Here are the key news stories impacting IREN this week:

• Positive Sentiment: IREN delivered and received formal acceptance from Microsoft for Horizon 1, the first 50-megawatt deployment at its Childress, Texas campus. The project is the first of four planned 50-megawatt, direct-to-chip liquid-cooled AI cloud deployments, providing tangible evidence that IREN is moving from construction into commercial operations. IREN Delivers Horizon 1 to Microsoft and Achieves NVIDIA Exemplar Cloud Status on GB300 NVL72
• Positive Sentiment: IREN also achieved NVIDIA Exemplar Cloud status for its GB300 NVL72 platform. The designation may improve customer credibility and support demand for IREN’s high-performance AI cloud services. IREN stock jumps after Microsoft Horizon 1 delivery and Nvidia Exemplar Cloud status
• Positive Sentiment: Analysts remained bullish: Bernstein reaffirmed its Buy rating and $100 price target, while another analysis cited a $72.25 target. The bullish thesis depends on contracted annual recurring revenue expanding from approximately $4 billion in 2026 to $10 billion by 2028, supported by Microsoft and NVIDIA relationships and customer prepayments that could reduce funding risk. Bernstein analyst reaffirms Buy rating on IREN
• Positive Sentiment: Strong results and expanding AI infrastructure contracts at CoreWeave and Nebius improved sentiment across the neocloud sector. A separate report on Riot Platforms’ proposed long-term Anthropic data-center lease also reinforced expectations that power-intensive infrastructure can be repurposed for AI hosting. Why Is IREN Stock Surging on Wednesday?
• Negative Sentiment: IREN remains a highly volatile, richly valued growth stock, with substantial execution, capital-spending and customer-concentration risks as it scales its AI capacity. The company’s substantial net loss highlights that the AI revenue ramp has not yet fully translated into profitability. Riot Platforms Re-Wires the Ledger for a $9B AI Power Play

Analysts Set New Price Targets

Several analysts have issued reports on the stock. BTIG Research increased their price objective on shares of IREN to $80.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, May 8th. Cantor Fitzgerald upped their target price on shares of IREN from $77.00 to $99.00 and gave the company an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday, May 28th. Sanford C. Bernstein reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $100.00 price target on shares of IREN in a report on Thursday. The Goldman Sachs Group reaffirmed a “neutral” rating on shares of IREN in a research note on Monday, July 20th. Finally, Compass Point reiterated a “buy” rating on shares of IREN in a report on Tuesday, July 21st. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, fourteen have given a Buy rating, four have given a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $83.00.

IREN Trading Up 2.5%

The business has a 50 day simple moving average of $45.09 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $46.40. The company has a current ratio of 3.72, a quick ratio of 3.72 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.44. The stock has a market cap of $16.00 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 93.25 and a beta of 4.29.

Institutional Trading of IREN

A number of hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Marex Group plc raised its stake in shares of IREN by 14,216.7% in the 4th quarter. Marex Group plc now owns 4,471,263 shares of the company’s stock valued at $168,880,000 after purchasing an additional 4,440,032 shares in the last quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets acquired a new position in IREN in the fourth quarter worth about $158,677,000. Clear Street Group Inc. bought a new stake in IREN in the fourth quarter valued at about $137,075,000. Situational Awareness LP increased its holdings in IREN by 90.1% in the second quarter. Situational Awareness LP now owns 6,400,384 shares of the company’s stock valued at $93,254,000 after buying an additional 3,034,254 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Quadrature Capital Ltd raised its stake in IREN by 1,022.2% during the fourth quarter. Quadrature Capital Ltd now owns 2,870,637 shares of the company’s stock valued at $108,424,000 after buying an additional 2,614,835 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 41.08% of the company’s stock.

About IREN

IREN Limited, formerly known as Iris Energy Limited, owns and operates bitcoin mining data centers. The company was incorporated in 2018 and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia.