Shares of Nebius Group surged 7.0% to $9.44 on September 25, a day after BNP Paribas Exane upgraded the stock to Outperform and slapped a $399 price target on it — implying the company could be worth roughly 42 times its current trading level. For a company still in the early innings of building out its AI cloud infrastructure business, the call is either visionary or wildly premature. Now I have a clear picture. The stock prices provided by the user ($9.44) appear to be on a split-adjusted basis (NBISD.BA, likely a Buenos Aires-listed ADR or fractional), while the actual NBIS Nasdaq price is around $243. The $399 target and market cap of ~$60B all align with the Nasdaq listing. Let me write the briefing.
BNP Paribas Bets Big on Nebius With a $399 Target — But Can a Cash-Burning AI Cloud Builder Justify a 53% Premium?
Shares of Nebius Group jumped as much as 8% after BNP Paribas Exane analyst Stefan Slowinski upgraded the stock to Outperform from Neutral on September 24 and hiked his price target 53% — from $260 to $399. The move immediately lifted the stock, which traded near $243. The upgrade lands at a moment when two converging catalysts are testing whether this fast-growing AI cloud company can convert blistering revenue growth into lasting profitability.
• Revenue Is Exploding, but the Company Still Loses Money
Nebius posted Q2 revenue of $582 million, up 454% year-over-year, with its core AI cloud unit generating $575 million.
Management reiterated full-year 2026 guidance of $3 billion to $3.4 billion in revenue. Yet under standard accounting rules, the quarter produced a net loss of $190 million.
Capital spending hit $5.66 billion in Q2 alone — nearly ten times revenue. BNP's $399 target is a bet that this investment cycle pays off; if it doesn't, shareholders absorb the burn.
• Price Hikes Signal That Demand Still Outstrips Supply
Nebius will increase GPU rental prices by up to 21% effective October 1, with hourly rates for its highest-end chips rising to $9.50.
This is the company's second round of price increases within months, with cumulative hikes on some chips reaching roughly 56%.
Even after these increases, Nebius's rates remain nearly half the price of Amazon Web Services, suggesting room to push further without losing customers. For investors, pricing power is the clearest path to profitable margins on that massive infrastructure spend.
• Mega-Deals Provide Visibility — and Concentration Risk
Nebius closed four AI cloud contracts in Q2, each with a total value exceeding $1 billion.
A long-term agreement with Meta alone could be worth approximately $27 billion over five years. Those commitments underpin the revenue forecast, but they also tie Nebius's fortunes to a handful of giant customers who could eventually build their own infrastructure.
• Not Everyone Agrees With the Bull Case
Rothschild & Co Redburn initiated coverage this week with a Sell rating and an $84 price target — less than a quarter of BNP's figure. Nebius's market cap already sits near $60 billion, pricing in enormous future growth. The gap between the most bullish and bearish analysts is wider than the stock price itself, a sign that the market is still trying to figure out what this company is actually worth.