CoreWeave was one of the most highly-anticipated initial public offerings of the year. In fact, it was the biggest U.S. tech IPO since 2021. The cloud services provider – which has navigated a challenging path to its IPO – is being viewed as a barometer of future Wall Street dealmaking and the investment banks that profit from them. The news CoreWeave shares opened at $39 each early Friday afternoon — debuting short of their offer price. The stock sank further before rallying in late afternoon trading. The New Jersey-based company, which provides big tech customers access to Nvidia chips for AI training and workloads, priced a scaled-back 37.5 million shares at $40 each Thursday evening — below the initial expected range of between $47 and $55. Still, CoreWeave managed to raise $1.5 billion. Based on Friday’s trading, its market capitalization was more than $19 billion. In response to the size and pricing adjustments, CoreWeave CEO Mike Intrator cited “headwinds in the macro” environment. During an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday morning, Intrator said the company “definitely had to scale or rightsize the transaction for where the buying interest was.” He added, “We believe that as the public markets get to know us, get to know how we execute, get to know how we build our infrastructure, get to know how we build our client relationships and the incredible capacity of our solutions, the company will be very successful.” Big picture The CoreWeave IPO comes as Wall Street’s largest financial firms are banking on a pickup in deals following years of muted public offerings and mergers due to high interest rates and macroeconomic uncertainty. The market expected deal activity to pick up — and for investment banks, like Club name Goldman Sachs , to see fatter fees — after Donald Trump won the presidential election on promises of robust economic growth and deregulation. The deals and proceeds have increased in 2025, but not as much as hoped due to the stock market’s recent volatility. In the first quarter, according to IPO-tracker Renaissance Capital, 44 offerings have raised a combined $9.4 billion. That’s up from 30 IPOs and a combined $7.8 billion raised in the year-ago period. “A strong start was cut off by a market correction near quarter-end,” Renaissance Capital said in a report this week. Trump’s near-daily tariff headlines are increasing concerns of a recession and an all-out global trade war. That’s made companies want to conserve capital and stay on the sidelines when it comes to new deals. Case in point: Jefferies posted lackluster first-quarter earnings results Wednesday as profits declined on investment banking weakness. Jefferies CEO Rich Handler said, “Capital markets have become increasingly more challenging due to the uncertainties that have arisen around U.S. policy and geopolitical events.” There are still reasons to be optimistic, though. Online lender Klarna and physical therapy company Hinge Health have both filed prospectuses shortly after CoreWeave did. There have also been recent reports that the popular chat app Discord tapped Goldman Sachs and other large banks for a planned IPO as well, according to Bloomberg. Goldman, along with Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan , were the lead underwriters of the CoreWeave offering. GS YTD mountain Goldman Sachs (GS) year-to-date performance Bottom line There’s no doubt about it: CoreWeave’s public debut will send a signal to investors about the outlook for the IPO market. “This was the one that’s supposed to open the floodgates [for deals],” Jim Cramer said Friday. More deals are essential in our investment case for Goldman – which we bought more of last week. We initiated a position in the Wall Street behemoth last year on the premise that it’s the best pure-play for an investment banking rebound. CoreWeave is “certainly going to be a test. Not only for demand for AI stocks but also the IPO market at large,” Jeff Marks, the Club’s director of portfolio analysis, said Friday. “That’s crucial for Goldman.” We recognize that the IB resurgence hasn’t materialized yet in 2025. But we’re not giving up hope on Goldman ahead of its quarterly earnings next month. Trading volumes have been strong, given the stock market’s recent volatility, which could offset some IB revenue weakness. Plus, it seems like uncertainty around dealmaking has been priced into Goldman’s stock already. Shares are down 19% from record highs last month. The stock was also 5% lower year-to-date, in line with the S & P 500’s dismal performance. Getting past April 2 –the looming deadline for Trump’s wide-ranging reciprocal tariffs – will be helpful for Goldman’s IB business as well. “There should be more clarity after April 2,” Marks said. “We just gotta get through it now until then.” (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long GS, NVDA. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. 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Michael Intrator, Founder & CEO of CoreWeave, Inc., Nvidia-backed cloud services provider, gestures during the company’s IPO at the Nasdaq Market, in New York City, U.S., March 28, 2025.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
CoreWeave was one of the most highly-anticipated initial public offerings of the year. In fact, it was the biggest U.S. tech IPO since 2021.
The cloud services provider – which has navigated a challenging path to its IPO – is being viewed as a barometer of future Wall Street dealmaking and the investment banks that profit from them.
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