Benchmark raised Hut 8's target price to the highest level on Wall Street, causing the stock price to surge by 14%.

Hut 8 (HUT.US) stock price rose sharply on Monday, soaring 19% at one point and closing up 14.21% at $50.39. Prior to this, Benchmark, a company under StoneX, raised its target price to $85, the highest on Wall Street. Analysts pointed out that this increase was due to an agreement recently reached by CareTrust REIT Inc. (REIT) to lease its River Bend data center with a capacity of 245 megawatts to Fluidstack for 15 years. Analyst Mark Palmer wrote in a research report to clients, "This deal combines relatively superior economic terms compared to similar transactions, long-term and investment-grade guaranteed cash flow, and multiple embedded expansion options across three counterparties - Anthropic, Fluidstack, and Alphabet Inc. Class C (GOOGL.US). We believe this makes Hut 8 one of the most advantaged providers of artificial intelligence/high-performance computing infrastructure in the public market." He praised Hut 8 management for not rushing to monetize the company's power assets in the early stages of the artificial intelligence infrastructure battle, when pricing, structure, and counterpart conditions were not so favorable. Instead, the company waited until it could reach a deal that met internal return thresholds and strategic standards. Benchmark estimates the initial valuation of the River Bend portion at approximately $7.6 billion, reflecting contract cash flows and the scarce value of investment-grade rated power resources available for artificial intelligence. Based on a sum-of-the-parts valuation analysis, Palmer reiterated a "buy" rating on Hut 8 and raised its target price from $78 to $85.