Nebius Group shares fell sharply on Thursday, 12 November, after the AI cloud provider reported third-quarter revenue far above Wall Street forecasts but told investors its spending plans would be much bigger than expected.

The shares were trading at about $126.29 at 10:53 a.m. ET, down about 18.4% from Wednesday's close of $154.69, according to market data cited by Tech & Money Press. The fall came a day after the stock had jumped 15% as strong results from rival CoreWeave lifted the whole neocloud sector.

Revenue beat overshadowed by spending

The quarter itself was strong. Nebius posted third-quarter revenue of $980.8 million, up 571% from a year earlier and above the LSEG consensus of $907.5 million, according to CNBC. The net loss narrowed to $37.5 million, or 13 cents per share, from $119.6 million, or 50 cents per share, a year ago. Its AI Cloud business brought in $973.8 million, about 99% of group revenue.

What unsettled investors was the bill for growth. Nebius raised its 2026 capital spending plan to about $27 billion, up from prior guidance of $20 billion to $25 billion, while FactSet had expected $23.85 billion. For 2027 it guided capital spending to $40 billion to $45 billion, against a FactSet expectation of about $28.77 billion.

The company also pushed back a milestone traders had been watching. Nebius had aimed to pass $7 billion in annualised run-rate revenue by December, but now says monthly annualised revenue will clear $7 billion in February 2027, and it is dropping annualised revenue as a target from 2027 onwards.

Guidance cut at the low end

Revenue guidance moved the other way. Nebius now expects 2026 revenue at the low end of its $3 billion to $3.4 billion range, below the $3.35 billion FactSet consensus, after some partner capacity slipped into the first half of 2027. For 2027 it guided revenue to $12 billion to $13 billion, which chief executive Arkady Volozh described as a conservative approach to the pace of the build-out.

According to Reuters, Nebius said 75% to 85% of its 2027 spending will be covered by customer prepayments and asset-backed financing of existing contracts, and it expects to break even on a pre-tax basis by the end of next year. The company ended September with $7.4 billion in cash and has lined up $3.5 billion of senior secured financing from Citi.

Selling spreads across the neocloud trade

The selling did not stay with Nebius. At 10:53 a.m. ET, CoreWeave was down about 7.5% at $56.24 and IREN was down about 7.8% at $19.23, giving back part of the gains made the previous day. The contrast with CoreWeave, which reported two days earlier, was stark: CoreWeave raised its 2026 revenue guidance, while Nebius told investors its milestone was moving into next year and its 2027 spending plan had jumped by more than $11 billion against what the market had pencilled in.

The episode underlines how closely investors are now watching the funding of the AI build-out. Revenue growth of more than 500% was not enough to hold the shares when the cost of delivering that growth rose faster than expected.