Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ: NBIS) shares rose as much as 7% in Thursday trading, reaching $241.20 after opening at $231.84. The move followed BNP Paribas Exane’s upgrade of the AI infrastructure company from Neutral to Outperform.

BNP Paribas Exane also raised its price target for Nebius to $399 from $260. Based on Wednesday’s closing price of $226.61, the new target implies roughly 76% upside. The upgrade adds a bullish view to an otherwise divided analyst outlook. The current consensus rating is “Moderate Buy,” with an average price target of $241.80 — a level the new BNP Paribas target now sits well above.

The rating change followed Nebius’s announcement that it would increase prices for its on-demand GPU and CPU cloud services beginning October 1. On-demand rates are the prices customers pay for compute capacity without long-term commitments. Rates for Nvidia H100, H200, B200 and B300 instances are scheduled to rise by roughly 17% to 21%, while AMD EPYC Genoa CPU rates are expected to increase by about 25%.

Investors are interpreting the price increases as evidence of tight AI computing capacity rather than a cost-saving measure. The changes represent Nebius’s second round of price hikes in a matter of months, making the October 1 implementation a fixed reference point in the sector’s ongoing GPU pricing debate.

Nebius reported $574.9 million in second-quarter AI cloud revenue and an adjusted EBITDA margin of nearly 50%. Total quarterly revenue reached $582.3 million, an increase of 454% from the same period a year earlier and above analysts’ estimate of $567.91 million.

The company reported a loss of $0.12 per share, narrower than the consensus estimate of a $0.67 loss. That result compares with earnings of $2.38 per share in the year-earlier period.

Nebius shares advanced despite declines across the broader market. The Nasdaq fell 0.5%, the S&P 500 declined 0.4% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.4%. The move in NBIS therefore stood out against the market backdrop and was attributed in the source report to company-specific news.

Other neocloud companies, including CoreWeave and IREN, have struggled in recent sessions amid questions about GPU pricing. Neoclouds are specialist operators that rent out GPU capacity for AI workloads and compete with the largest hyperscale cloud platforms, which has made pricing power a central point of debate across the sector. Nebius’s gain consequently stood out among its peers.

Not all analysts share BNP Paribas Exane’s view. Rothschild Redburn recently initiated coverage of Nebius with a Sell rating, citing falling GPU rental prices and competition from hyperscalers as risks — a caution that stands in direct contrast to Nebius’s own decisions to raise prices.

Investor Michael Burry has also disclosed expanded short positions in Nebius and other AI-related companies. He has cited negative free cash flow, substantial capital requirements and customer concentration as concerns.

Insiders have sold approximately $43.6 million worth of Nebius stock over the past 90 days. Chief Revenue Officer Marc Boroditsky sold 7,000 shares on September 14 at an average price of $209.08. Director John Wilson Iv Boynton sold 5,296 shares on August 14 at an price of $270.99. Both transactions were conducted under pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plans, which allow company insiders to schedule sales in advance.

Nebius has a market capitalization of $60.69 billion and a beta of 4.23, a statistical measure of how sharply a stock tends to move relative to the broader market. Its 50-day moving average is $213.92, while its 200-day moving average is $193.97. The shares remain below their 52-week high of $299.86, and institutional investors own approximately 21.90% of the company’s stock.

Source: CoinCentral