Traders Buy High Volume of C3.ai Call Options (NYSE:AI)

Key Points

• Investors bought 126,333 call options on C3.ai on Friday — a 122% increase versus the average volume — marking unusually high options activity.
• C3.ai posted a quarterly earnings and revenue miss (EPS -$0.40 vs. -$0.29 expected; revenue $53.26M vs. $75.91M), with revenue down 46.1% year‑over‑year and deeply negative margins and ROE.
• Corporate insiders sold heavily (a total of 1,653,886 shares worth about $18.5M last quarter) while analysts have cut price targets, leaving a consensus rating of "Reduce" and an average target of $15.87.

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI - Get Free Report) was the target of some unusual options trading activity on Friday. Investors acquired 126,333 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 122% compared to the average volume of 56,821 call options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AI has been the subject of several research reports. Wedbush dropped their price target on C3.ai from $20.00 to $15.00 and set an "outperform" rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. Wolfe Research reiterated an "underperform" rating and issued a $6.00 target price on shares of C3.ai in a research note on Thursday, February 26th. BMO Capital Markets set a $7.00 target price on C3.ai in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Bank of America set a $10.00 price target on C3.ai in a research note on Friday, January 30th. Finally, KeyCorp decreased their price target on C3.ai from $10.00 to $6.00 and set an "underweight" rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has given a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and six have given a Sell rating to the company's stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of "Reduce" and an average price target of $15.87.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other C3.ai news, CFO Hitesh Lath sold 15,248 shares of the company's stock in a transaction on Monday, March 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $8.98, for a total value of $136,927.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 238,308 shares in the company, valued at $2,140,005.84. This represents a 6.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, Chairman Thomas M. Siebel sold 219,294 shares of the firm's stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, March 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $8.67, for a total value of $1,901,278.98. Following the transaction, the chairman directly owned 722,362 shares in the company, valued at approximately $6,262,878.54. The trade was a 23.29% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Insiders sold 1,653,886 shares of company stock valued at $18,506,063 over the last quarter. Corporate insiders own 26.50% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in AI. Hsbc Holdings PLC increased its position in shares of C3.ai by 200.2% during the fourth quarter. Hsbc Holdings PLC now owns 109,875 shares of the company's stock worth $1,482,000 after acquiring an additional 73,276 shares during the last quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. boosted its holdings in C3.ai by 11.7% in the fourth quarter. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. now owns 50,771 shares of the company's stock valued at $684,000 after purchasing an additional 5,320 shares during the last quarter. Alpine Global Management LLC acquired a new stake in C3.ai during the 4th quarter valued at approximately $206,000. Virtu Financial LLC purchased a new stake in C3.ai during the 4th quarter worth approximately $871,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. increased its holdings in C3.ai by 29.5% during the 4th quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 452,653 shares of the company's stock worth $6,102,000 after purchasing an additional 103,058 shares during the last quarter. 38.96% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

C3.ai Trading Down 0.1%

Shares of AI opened at $8.63 on Friday. The company has a 50-day moving average of $9.77 and a two-hundred day moving average of $13.62. The stock has a market cap of $1.25 billion, a P/E ratio of -2.74 and a beta of 2.08. C3.ai has a 12-month low of $7.68 and a 12-month high of $30.24.

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

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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