Shares of Cerebras Systems (CBRS) fell 10% in afternoon trading on Monday, hitting $147.76 and marking a new 52-week low for the AI chipmaker.

The stock closed the previous session on Friday at $164.17. Earlier in Monday's session, MarketBeat showed it down 7% at an intraday low of $155.50, and the slide picked up speed as the day went on. Trading volume topped 2.1 million shares at that earlier point. The 50-day moving average sits at $199.54, well above where the stock now trades — a threshold many traders treat as a short-term trend gauge, and one the shares now sit clearly below.

The selling pressure traces back to an industry report published in late September, which said OpenAI's GPT-6.1 Sol "Ultrafast" inference level runs on Nvidia GPUs rather than Cerebras hardware. Inference — the stage of AI computing in which a deployed model generates responses for users — is a recurring, compute-intensive workload, which is why the choice of hardware matters commercially to chip suppliers. The report carries weight because OpenAI has a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar computing deal with Cerebras, and it cut into a core part of the story that many buyers had been betting on.

Microsoft Adds to the Pressure

Microsoft also made news on Monday, announcing that its Maia family of chips will become the primary inference system for its own products and services starting in 2027. The move fits a broader pattern in which the largest cloud operators build in-house silicon to run more of their own workloads, giving third-party AI chipmakers another competitive front in the inference market. For a stock already under strain, the announcement introduced a fresh competitor to worry about, and traders appear to have taken it as one more reason to step back.

The broader market offered little help. The S&P 500 slipped 0.06% to 7,807.24, the Dow gained 0.38%, and the Nasdaq Composite eased modestly.

Cerebras now trades more than 60% below its all-time high of $386.34, a peak reached on the company's IPO debut day. The market capitalization stands at $36.16 billion. The company has a current ratio of 5.82 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.02 — balance-sheet figures indicating current assets well in excess of near-term obligations and minimal leverage, both relevant as the company continues to post losses.

Insider Sales and Analyst Views

The company last reported earnings on August 12. Revenue came in at $209.87 million, up 74.3% from a year earlier. The adjusted loss per share was $2.98, against a consensus estimate of a $0.21 loss. Analysts expect a full-year loss of $0.52 per share.

Insiders have been sellers. Chief Technology Officer Sean Lie sold about $25.1 million of stock on September 25 at an average price of $208.97, under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan — the type of pre-scheduled trading program executives adopt in advance, designed to put sales in motion independently of material nonpublic information. Director Steven Vassallo sold roughly $10.5 million on September 4 at $210.30. In all, insiders sold $387.7 million worth of stock over the past quarter, and a Form 4 dated October 7 showed additional activity.

Some large funds have been buyers. Value Aligned Research Advisors took a $241.9 million new position in the second quarter, and Wellington Management added a stake worth about $194.9 million.

Analyst views remain mostly positive, with an overall Moderate Buy rating and an average price target of $299.90 — an average that sits far above Monday's trading level. Two analysts rate the stock Strong Buy, ten rate it Buy, one says Hold, and one says Sell. Several firms have trimmed their targets: Citigroup cut its target from $340 to $320, and Mizuho lowered its from $310 to $300.

Lockup timing is the next item on the calendar. About 19.4 million shares become eligible for sale around October 14 as part of a staggered post-IPO unlock; lockups of this kind are standard after public listings, and each expiration gradually widens pool of freely tradable shares. That potential increase in supply arrives just as the stock tests fresh lows, making the unlock one of the most closely watched dates on the company's near-term calendar.