C3.ai (NYSE:AI) Stock Price Up 3.6% - Here's Why

Key Points

• C3.ai shares rose 3.6% to $8.96 on Tuesday on light volume (2.25M vs. avg. 7.65M) and remain well below their 50- and 200-day moving averages; analysts' consensus rating is "Reduce" with an average target of $15.87 after several recent price-target cuts.
• The company posted an earnings and revenue miss for the quarter (EPS -$0.40 vs. -$0.29 est.; revenue $53.3M vs. $75.9M), with revenue down 46% year‑over‑year, negative margins, and analysts forecasting -2.44 EPS for the fiscal year.
• There has been notable insider selling: Chairman Thomas Siebel sold 511,732 shares and insiders disposed of 1.87M shares (~$24.7M) over the last three months, leaving insiders with 26.5% ownership.

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI - Get Free Report) traded up 3.6% on Tuesday . The stock traded as high as $8.76 and last traded at $8.9630. 2,251,867 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 71% from the average session volume of 7,649,883 shares. The stock had previously closed at $8.65.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

A number of equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Wedbush cut their price target on shares of C3.ai from $20.00 to $15.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. DA Davidson reduced their price objective on shares of C3.ai from $13.00 to $7.00 and set an "underperform" rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday. BMO Capital Markets set a $7.00 target price on shares of C3.ai in a report on Thursday. Bank of America set a $10.00 price objective on shares of C3.ai in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Finally, Wolfe Research reiterated an "underperform" rating and set a $6.00 target price on shares of C3.ai in a report on Thursday. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has assigned a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and six have issued a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of "Reduce" and an average target price of $15.87.

C3.ai Price Performance

The firm has a market cap of $1.28 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.89 and a beta of 2.05. The stock's fifty day moving average price is $12.11 and its 200-day moving average price is $14.94.

C3.ai (NYSE:AI - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The company reported ($0.40) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.29) by ($0.11). The company had revenue of $53.26 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $75.91 million. C3.ai had a negative return on equity of 53.96% and a negative net margin of 141.35%.The firm's quarterly revenue was down 46.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company earned ($0.12) EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that C3.ai, Inc. will post -2.44 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Transactions at C3.ai

In other C3.ai news, Chairman Thomas M. Siebel sold 511,732 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, February 10th. The shares were sold at an average price of $11.66, for a total value of $5,966,795.12. Following the sale, the chairman directly owned 722,362 shares in the company, valued at $8,422,740.92. This trade represents a 41.47% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CFO Hitesh Lath sold 15,042 shares of C3.ai stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $14.38, for a total transaction of $216,303.96. Following the sale, the chief financial officer owned 223,120 shares in the company, valued at approximately $3,208,465.60. This trade represents a 6.32% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 1,867,304 shares of company stock worth $24,729,104 over the last three months. 26.50% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On C3.ai

Several institutional investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the stock. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP lifted its position in 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 in 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 bought a new position in shares of C3.ai during the fourth quarter worth approximately $9,183,000. Federated Hermes Inc. grew its stake in shares of C3.ai by 93,578.8% in the fourth quarter. Federated Hermes Inc. now owns 675,424 shares of the company's stock valued at $9,105,000 after acquiring an additional 674,703 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Quantbot Technologies LP raised its position in shares of C3.ai by 2,831.4% in the third quarter. Quantbot Technologies LP now owns 554,472 shares of the company's stock valued at $9,615,000 after buying an additional 535,557 shares in the last quarter. 38.96% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

About C3.ai

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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