New York, Feb 19, 2026, 15:54 EST — Regular session
- IREN was up 1.8% at $42.83 late Thursday, after trading as low as $40.15.
- A filing showed Cantor Fitzgerald lifted its IREN holding sharply by the end of 2025.
- Traders are also watching IREN’s planned MSCI USA Index inclusion on Feb. 27.
IREN Limited (NASDAQ: IREN) shares rose on Thursday after a regulatory filing showed Cantor Fitzgerald ramped up its stake in the AI data-center and bitcoin-mining company. The stock was up 1.8% at $42.83 at 3:39 p.m. EST.
The disclosure matters now because IREN has become a high-beta proxy for two trades that have been moving fast — crypto and AI infrastructure. With the MSCI USA Index inclusion set for late February, the stock is drawing more attention from both passive and event-driven investors.
Position updates in Form 13F filings can jolt sentiment in smaller names. A 13F is a quarterly holdings report that large investment managers file to disclose many U.S.-listed equity positions.
In a Form 13F filed on Feb. 17 for the quarter ended Dec. 31, Cantor Fitzgerald reported holding 3,469,904 IREN shares valued at about $131 million. The filing also listed put options tied to 5,025,000 IREN shares — contracts that typically gain value if the stock falls and are often used to hedge long positions. (Sec)
A restated filing for the prior quarter ended Sept. 30 showed Cantor Fitzgerald held 136,481 IREN shares worth about $6.4 million at that point, implying a sharp step-up in exposure over the quarter. (Sec)
IREN swung widely in Thursday’s session, trading between $40.15 and $43.11. Other U.S.-listed crypto miners were also higher, tracking a firmer bitcoin price.
Bitcoin was up about 1.2% near $67,000, while peers including Riot Platforms and MARA Holdings traded up several percentage points in afternoon trade.
IREN has been pitching its push into AI compute, and on Tuesday the company appointed data-center engineer John Gross as chief innovation officer, a new role focused on engineering standards, thermal architecture and commissioning for its next-generation sites. Co-CEO Daniel Roberts said Gross had been “instrumental” in shaping its engineering standards. (Globenewswire)
Gross said IREN sits “at the intersection of power, infrastructure, and compute,” arguing cooling design will matter more as AI workloads grow hotter and denser. Liquid cooling moves heat off high-powered chips more efficiently than air systems, and has become a key constraint for new AI data centers.
Earlier this month, IREN said it had secured $3.6 billion of GPU financing for its Microsoft contract at an interest rate below 6% a year, and said a $1.9 billion Microsoft prepayment would cover most of the GPU-related spending. It posted quarterly revenue of $184.7 million and a net loss of $155.4 million for the three months ended Dec. 31. (Globenewswire)
Bitcoin mining still drove most of that revenue at $167.4 million, while AI cloud services generated $17.3 million as deployments ramped, the company said. IREN has targeted $3.4 billion of annual recurring revenue, or ARR — a run-rate metric that annualizes contracted sales — but it warned the target is not fully contracted and assumes on-time GPU delivery and commissioning.
Another calendar item is nearing: IREN is set to be added to the MSCI USA Index after the close on Feb. 27. Roberts said the move reflected the “scale and liquidity” built in the business and could broaden institutional access as IREN pursues its AI cloud strategy. (Globenewswire)
But the trade cuts both ways. Any slip in GPU delivery schedules, cooling system buildouts or customer contracting — and a sharp reversal in bitcoin — could hit sentiment quickly in a stock that already moves hard from session to session. The next focal point is Feb. 27, when index trackers adjust around IREN’s MSCI inclusion.
