Why Is IREN Stock Falling on Thursday?

IREN Limited (NASDAQ:IREN) stock is trading lower Thursday amid a selloff in artificial intelligence and data center stocks. The broader market was little changed, with the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) down 0.15% and the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY) off 0.07%.

The downward move follows a leadership transition at NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), where co-founder Jensen Huang resigned as president, CEO and a member of the board, effective immediately. Nvidia named executive vice president and CFO Colette Kress interim CEO while its board searches for a permanent successor.

IREN has a short float of 61.43 million shares, representing 21.95% of its total float. The stock recorded session volume of 30.64 million shares, compared with its 100-day average trading volume of 50.55 million shares, according to Benzinga Pro.

Midterm Data Center Opposition

Thursday’s decline compounds ongoing pressure from the November midterm elections. Reuters reported last week that voters across 10 states backed restrictions or rejected data center development proposals. According to Redbud Consulting tracking, 40 of the 41 data center ballot measures sought to restrict facilities, raising investor concerns over tighter regulatory oversight and higher construction costs.

Technical Analysis

From a trend perspective, IREN remains in a clear longer-term downtrend: it’s trading 21.7% below its 20-day simple moving average (SMA), 44.8% below its 50-day SMA and 55.2% below its 200-day SMA — levels that typically signal sellers still control the bigger picture. The bearish backdrop is reinforced by the death cross that formed in August (50-day SMA below the 200-day SMA), which often acts as an "overhead supply" regime until price can reclaim key moving averages.

Key support sits at $17, near the 52-week low of $17.16, making it an important level for buyers to defend.

The broader trend remains challenging for the Technology sector, which has fallen 12.25% over the past 30 days and 9.36% over the past 90 days. Meanwhile, market leadership is shifting toward more defensive sectors, with energy and utilities stocks gaining on the day.

The State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE:XLE) was up 0.97% and the State Street Utilities Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSE:XLU) rose 0.40%, a sign investors are favoring cash-flow stability over growth-oriented and higher-volatility technology stocks.

IREN Price Action: IREN shares were down 7.58% at $19.26 at the time of publication Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro data.

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