Key Takeaways
- Borrowed Scare: Nebius stock fell 25.15% last week to $165.47, with ~79% of the drop on Wednesday and Friday as CoreWeave’s debt fears spread.
- Pricier Funding: Shares now sit 8% to 10% below the conversion prices on $4.34B of March convertibles and 26% below the $223.60 average of its 2026 share sales.
- Capex Wall: Analysts see capex rising from $4.07B in 2025 to $23.21B in 2026 and $29.14B in 2027.
- Street Unmoved: 13 buys, 2 outperforms, 6 holds, 1 underperform, and 1 sell, with a $283.60 mean target ~71% above Friday’s close.
Nebius Group (NBIS) stock fell 25% last week, from $221 at the October 9 close to $165 on Friday, October 16. Most of the drop came on Wednesday and Friday, when worries about CoreWeave’s debt spread to every company renting out AI computing power.
Nebius reported nothing bad about itself, and its own debt didn’t change. What changed is the price of the two tools it has used to fund its buildout this year.
Two Days Did Most of the Damage
Wednesday and Friday account for about 79% of the $56 drop.
- Monday and Tuesday: Shares slipped 6% to $207.
- Wednesday, October 14: Hot consumer price data raised bets on another Fed rate hike, and debt-heavy AI stocks tumbled. CoreWeave (CRWV) sank 15.5% as the yield on its 2032 notes neared 15%. Nebius closed down 10% at $186, and IREN (IREN) dropped about 10%.
- Thursday: A 1% bounce.
- Friday, October 16: The focus moved to CoreWeave’s roughly $50 billion debt load. CoreWeave fell about 12% again, and Nebius dropped 12% to $165.
The market sold Nebius as if it carried CoreWeave’s balance sheet. It doesn’t. At June 30, Nebius had about $0.50 billion of borrowings net of cash, excluding lease liabilities, versus roughly $29.54 billion at CoreWeave on the same basis. Paul Meeks, head of technology research at Freedom Capital Markets, told CNBC that CoreWeave’s balance sheet is “relatively bad” compared with its neocloud peers.
The Price of Nebius’ Funding Just Went Up
The drop still costs Nebius something real, because its stock price is part of how it pays for growth.
In March, Nebius sold $4.34 billion of convertible notes with initial conversion prices of $183.22 and $180.31, and Friday’s close sits roughly 8% to 10% below them. Unless converted, redeemed or repurchased earlier, their principal grows to 120% at maturity. Conversion remains possible under the notes’ terms, and Nebius can settle in cash, shares or both. The August notes have initial conversion prices of $313.46 and $324.65, roughly 89% and 96% above Friday’s close.
Nebius also sold 12.7 million shares through June at an average of $223.60. A share sold at Friday’s price raises 26% less, so every new equity raise now takes a bigger slice of the company from existing holders.
That matters because the bill is getting much bigger.
Nebius’ Buildout Bill Heads Past $29 Billion
Analysts expect Nebius to spend $23.21 billion on capital projects in 2026 and $29.14 billion in 2027, up from $4.07 billion in 2025. By 2027, that’s more than seven times last year’s spending.
Nebius has raised substantial financing for its buildout: about $13.7 billion in gross proceeds this year from its convertibles, share sales, and a $775 million secured loan priced at SOFR plus 2.50%. It also expects more than $9 billion of customer prepayments in 2026, equal to about 39% of 2026 capex.
2027 is the open part. Nebius will need to fund much of that $29 billion with its stock below the March conversion prices, which makes any equity it sells more dilutive for the same amount raised.
Analysts Haven’t Moved on Nebius Stock
The Street’s mean target is $284, 71% above Friday’s close. Nebius has 13 buys, 2 outperforms, 6 holds, 1 underperform, and 1 sell. Twenty analysts have set a price target, ranging from $84 to $410.
The mean was $283.58 at the end of September, when the stock closed at $236. Shares have since fallen 30%, and the target hasn’t budged. In June it was the other way around: the stock traded 11% above a $245 mean target. The Street spent the summer raising targets toward the stock. Now the mean sits 71% above it.
The nearly unchanged consensus target shows little aggregate revision to analysts’ price expectations despite the selloff. The $84 low target hasn’t moved since September either.
Who Pays for Nebius’ 2027?
The open question is how much of the $29 billion 2027 buildout customers pay for up front.
If they keep paying the way they did in the second quarter, when about 70% of deals came with prepayments covering 50% to 60% of related capex, Nebius can lean on customers and on secured loans backed by investment-grade contracts. In that case, last week mostly hurt the price of new equity, not the plan.
If prepayments fall short, Nebius may need additional financing or adjustments to its spending plans. A lower share price would make equity funding more dilutive for the same amount raised, while any new borrowing would depend on Nebius’ own credit terms and collateral.
I think the first outcome is more likely especially when you consider that Nebius has over $40 billion of customer commitments and says it could sell its entire 2027 capacity on current terms today, which gives it room to ask for cash up front. Its third-quarter report is the first check, and the number that matters most is any update on 2027 prepayments, not revenue.
So what is Nebius stock actually worth?
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