C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI) Receives Consensus Rating of "Reduce" from Analysts

Key Points

• C3.ai has a consensus analyst rating of "Reduce" from 15 firms (6 sell, 7 hold, 1 buy, 1 strong buy) with an average 1‑year price target of $15.87.
• Significant insider selling occurred recently — the CFO and CEO sold shares and insiders disposed of 1,653,886 shares worth about $18.5M last quarter; insiders still own 26.50% of the company.
• The company reported a weak quarter (EPS ($0.40) vs. estimate ($0.29); revenue $53.26M vs. $75.91M, down 46.1% YoY), and the stock trades around $8.29 with a market cap near $1.2B and negative margins/ROE.

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI - Get Free Report) has received a consensus recommendation of "Reduce" from the fifteen research firms that are presently covering the stock, Marketbeat Ratings reports. Six investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have given a hold rating, one has issued a buy rating and one has given a strong buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $15.8667.

Several equities research analysts have commented on the stock. Wolfe Research restated an "underperform" rating and set a $6.00 target price on shares of C3.ai in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Canaccord Genuity Group cut their price target on C3.ai from $16.00 to $7.00 and set a "hold" rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. KeyCorp cut their price target on C3.ai from $10.00 to $6.00 and set an "underweight" rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Citizens Jmp downgraded C3.ai from an "outperform" rating to a "market perform" rating in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, UBS Group reaffirmed a "reduce" rating on shares of C3.ai in a research note on Thursday, February 26th.

Insider Transactions at C3.ai

In other news, CFO Hitesh Lath sold 15,248 shares of C3.ai stock in a transaction on Monday, March 16th. The stock was sold at an average price of $8.98, for a total transaction of $136,927.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 238,308 shares of the company's stock, valued at $2,140,005.84. The trade was a 6.01% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Stephen Bradley Ehikian sold 52,194 shares of C3.ai stock in a transaction on Tuesday, March 31st. The stock was sold at an average price of $8.22, for a total value of $429,034.68. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer directly owned 721,485 shares of the company's stock, valued at $5,930,606.70. This trade represents a 6.75% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 1,653,886 shares of company stock worth $18,506,063. Corporate insiders own 26.50% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in AI. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of C3.ai by 77.1% during the 3rd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,804,188 shares of the company's stock worth $31,284,000 after buying an additional 785,508 shares during the last quarter. Two Sigma Investments LP acquired a new position in C3.ai in the 3rd quarter valued at about $13,379,000. Voloridge Investment Management LLC acquired a new position in C3.ai in the 4th quarter valued at about $9,183,000. Federated Hermes Inc. raised its stake in C3.ai by 93,578.8% in the 4th quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 675,424 shares of the company's stock valued at $9,105,000 after purchasing an additional 674,703 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Quantbot Technologies LP raised its stake in C3.ai by 2,831.4% in the 3rd quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP now owns 554,472 shares of the company's stock valued at $9,615,000 after purchasing an additional 535,557 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 38.96% of the company's stock.

C3.ai Stock Performance

Shares of NYSE AI opened at $8.29 on Monday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.20 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.63 and a beta of 2.08. C3.ai has a one year low of $7.68 and a one year high of $30.24. The company's fifty day moving average is $9.40 and its two-hundred day moving average is $13.23.

C3.ai (NYSE:AI - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The company reported ($0.40) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.29) by ($0.11). The company had revenue of $53.26 million for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $75.91 million. C3.ai had a negative return on equity of 55.40% and a negative net margin of 141.35%.C3.ai's revenue for the quarter was down 46.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted ($0.12) earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that C3.ai will post -2.44 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

C3.ai Company Profile

C3.ai, Inc is a leading enterprise software provider focused on delivering scalable artificial intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) solutions to large organizations. The company's core offering, the C3 AI Suite, is a comprehensive, model-driven platform that unifies data ingestion, model development, and application deployment. Through its suite of tools, C3.ai enables customers to accelerate digital transformation initiatives by applying advanced machine learning, predictive analytics, and AI-driven insights across a broad range of business functions.

The C3 AI Suite provides a low-code environment for data scientists and application developers to rapidly design, test, and deploy enterprise-scale AI applications.

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