IREN Sinks 10% as Analyst Target Cuts Pile Up After Microsoft Delay; Cipher Digital Falls 6%, TeraWulf Slides 2%

Wall Street keeps cutting its expectations for IREN (NASDAQ:IREN), and the selling hasn’t let up. IREN stock is at $19.34 in afternoon trading, down 10%. Over the past month, IREN stock is down 45%.

A run of price-target cuts followed IREN’s November 5 report for Q1 FY2027. The report pushed back the timeline for capacity the company is building for Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT | MSFT Price Prediction) and showed a large funding gap. Other crypto miners that have turned into AI data center operators are also lower on a risk-off day after October inflation data came in above forecasts.

Analyst Target Cuts Pile Up on IREN

Goldman Sachs cut its IREN price target to $30 from $50 and kept a Neutral rating on November 7. JPMorgan analyst Richard Choe lowered his target to $55 from $65 on November 9 and kept an Overweight rating. Cantor Fitzgerald also cut its target to $47 from $99 on November 9 as the Microsoft deployment slipped.

Selling in IREN has built over several days, and the latest leg adds to that pressure as investors pull back from growth stocks more broadly. October consumer price index (CPI) data came in hotter than economists expected, lifting the odds of tighter monetary policy and weighing on capital-hungry companies that depend on financing. Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) is down 2% over the past 24 hours to approximately $73,200, a weak background for miners that still run legacy mining fleets.

Inside IREN’s Delayed Microsoft Timeline and Funding Gap

IREN’s Q1 revenue of $228 million topped the $221.71 million consensus estimate, driven by $200 million in AI Cloud revenue. The bottom line at IREN came in weaker than expected. Its loss per share of $0.62 was wider than the $0.49 estimate, and its net loss under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) reached $263 million.

The report also shifted IREN’s revenue target. The more than $4 billion of annualized run-rate revenue moved from year-end to January, with a possible slip to the end of February. On the November 5 call, co-CEO Daniel Roberts blamed a Microsoft-requested network upgrade and supplier timing.

Of IREN’s planned $15 billion in remaining FY2027 capital expenditures, $6 billion still needs funding. Net debt at IREN rose to $4.43 billion from $216 million. Roberts acknowledged the harder background: “Capital markets have become more selective in the last few weeks.”

Cipher Digital and TeraWulf Slide Less Than IREN

Cipher Digital (NASDAQ:CIFR) stock is at $6.39, down 6%, a smaller drop than IREN’s. Back on November 2, the company’s Q3 2026 report showed revenue of $26.70 million, missing the $37.49 million consensus estimate. That quarter also brought its first high-performance computing (HPC) lease revenue, and the stock is falling with the rest of the group as rate worries hit names that depend on financing.

TeraWulf (NASDAQ:WULF) stock is at $12.12, down 2%, the smallest decline of the three. Citi cut its TeraWulf price target to $24 from $31 on November 10 and kept a Buy rating. A November 6 Q3 2026 report gave TeraWulf a revenue beat, with $76.23 million topping the $63.34 million consensus.

How IREN’s AI Cloud Model Differs From Its Peers

IREN owns the land, power and data centers behind its business. It also runs an AI Cloud operation that rents graphics processing unit (GPU) capacity directly to Microsoft and frontier AI labs. That vertical integration gives IREN more control over its growth. It also puts the cost of the chips and their financing on the company’s balance sheet. (The power, cooling and networking suppliers feeding this data-center expansion are a separate trade, and we rounded up seven of them in a free report here.)

Cipher Digital takes the opposite approach as a long-term colocation landlord whose tenants install their own equipment. CEO Tyler Page spoke on the company’s November 2 call. He said “Lenders and investors are placing a premium on predictable, contracted cash flows, and that is exactly what our model is designed to produce.” TeraWulf follows a similar leasing path. The company calls itself an energy infrastructure company, leaves GPU ownership to its tenants and relies on investment-grade credit support for its Anthropic lease.

What Comes Next for IREN’s Microsoft Buildout

IREN now faces the question of whether its contracted run-rate revenue goes live on the revised schedule and Microsoft signs off on the remaining capacity. Bulls point to IREN’s revenue backlog of $20.3 billion, which the company disclosed rose 22% sequentially, with the majority tied to investment-grade customers. The bears focus on the funding gap and whether IREN closes it with debt against its data centers or with new stock that could dilute shareholders.

IREN management said on its call that demand for compute “has frankly never been stronger,” though the cost of capital could decide how quickly that demand becomes revenue. A conservative investment approach could make sense until IREN’s Microsoft deal resolves.

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