Shares of CoreWeave (CRWV) and Nebius Group fell about 9% on Friday morning, with CoreWeave trading near $63.25 and Nebius near $172.32. Neither company issued a statement on Oct. 16.

CoreWeave listed on the Nasdaq in March 2025, while Nebius emerged from the 2024 spinoff of Russian technology group Yandex. Both have become prominent suppliers of GPU capacity to AI developers. Because GPU data centers require heavy upfront capital, how these companies finance their buildouts has become as central to the story as their growth numbers.

The two stocks are now down roughly 15% over five sessions, and some reports put the weekly decline above 22%. Nebius remains up 106% year to date, while CoreWeave is down 12%. The selloff was concentrated among cloud-linked names: the First Trust Cloud Computing ETF fell 4%, compared with a 1.35% decline in the Invesco QQQ Trust, suggesting cloud stocks were hit harder than large technology peers. CNN's Fear & Greed Index, a gauge of investor sentiment, dropped from 46 to 28 in one week.

CoreWeave's Bonds Drive the Selloff

Neoclouds rent out GPU computing power to AI developers, and their shares are increasingly trading in line with the credit market. The connection is direct: neoclouds need steady financing to buy GPUs, so borrowing conditions shape how much capacity they can add and on what terms. CoreWeave's unsecured bonds, which carry no collateral, reached a 15% yield — a level Bloomberg reported signals financial strain. Yields move opposite to bond prices, so the jump means holders demanded a far larger return to keep lending, and for a debt-reliant issuer it makes future borrowing more expensive.

Investor Chamath Palihapitiya highlighted the figure and said AI spending may be creating a private credit bubble. Elon Musk replied with a single word: “Yikes.”

CoreWeave's second-quarter report showed a debt-to-equity ratio of 8.94, while quarterly interest expense rose to $640 million from $267 million a year earlier. Bloomberg also reported that the company's founders sold $3.3 billion of stock.

What Goldman Sachs Said

Goldman Sachs said spreads on US dollar high-yield AI debt widened by 25 basis points between Oct. 13 and 14, reaching a new high of 360 basis points over Treasurys. Non-AI debt spreads widened by only two basis points over the same period. A spread is the extra yield investors demand over risk-free government debt, so the 360-basis-point figure means AI borrowers were paying 3.6 percentage points more than the US government to raise dollars — a gap that barely moved for non-AI issuers.

Strategist Amanda Lynam said AI-related corporate bonds issued by neoclouds sit at the center of the funding cost debate. According to the bank, the widening reflects a reassessment of AI buildout economics, particularly for lower-rated borrowers exposed to higher-for-longer rates.

Lynam expects some near-term reversal of the selloff, though she added that differences across AI debt issuers are likely to remain large.

Backlog, Funding and Market Mood

CoreWeave reported a $104 billion backlog as of June 30 and added more than $25 billion in new commitments early in the third quarter. The company guided third-quarter interest expense to between $860 million and $940 million. That combination — a growing order book alongside a rising financing bill — is precisely what the credit market is reassessing.

Nebius, for its part, funded growth mostly with equity and convertible notes. In the first half of 2026, it raised $4.34 billion from convertible issuances and $2.85 billion from treasury share sales.

On rates, the 10-year Treasury yield has fallen from 5.31% to 5.08% since Oct. 5, while a hot inflation report on Oct. 14 revived bets on Federal Reserve rate hikes. Bloomberg reported that CoreWeave's CEO told staff the market was acting irrationally.

Some buyers moved against the tide. Cantor Fitzgerald said nearly all of CoreWeave's planned 2027 capacity is already sold, and ARK Invest purchased CoreWeave shares on Oct. 14.

Analysts say CoreWeave's bond yields remain the signal to watch, and a drop well below 15% would ease the pressure. Goldman's spread readings and CoreWeave's own interest-expense guidance give investors concrete markers to track as the picture develops.

This article originally appeared on CoinCentral.