$IREN (-1,47 %) soared today. The reason was a potential partnership with Anthropic.
IREN’s stock soared 12.5% to $43.69 in morning trading today. The move was triggered by reports that the company has been shortlisted for Anthropic’s $15 billion data center project. This news served as a strong company-specific catalyst for the stock, which had previously been under significant selling pressure for nearly two weeks.
The move was significantly amplified by the momentum of a technical short squeeze. Short interest in IREN had risen to about 18.7% of the free float, and the put/call ratio in the options market reached its highest level of the year—conditions that, based on experience, typically precede sharp upward corrections following positive news. Over the previous five trading days, the stock had lost about 28% of its value, leaving it heavily oversold and thus ripe for a rebound.
The broader market also provided a supportive environment: The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.9% in today’s trading, and the S&P 500 gained 0.4%. This reflected a risk-on sentiment from which high-beta stocks in the AI infrastructure sector benefited. Competitors in the AI data center and Bitcoin mining segments, such as CoreWeave and Nebius, operate in the same market environment and have also benefited in recent weeks from rising expectations regarding hyperscaler spending. Analyst sentiment toward IREN remains clearly bullish, with a consensus “Buy” rating and an average price target of $81.75, which is significantly above the current trading level.
The combination of the report that Anthropic had shortlisted the company, a high short interest with potential for short covering, and a positive overall market environment thus led to today’s above-average price movement. This has offset part of the steep decline that had pushed the stock well below key moving averages—despite an unchanged long-term growth thesis based on significant contracts with Microsoft, Nvidia, and Dell.
