Investors Buy Large Volume of Call Options on C3.ai (NYSE:AI)

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI) saw some unusual options trading on Friday. Stock traders bought 157,372 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 89% compared to the typical volume of 83,347 call options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have recently commented on AI. JMP Securities dropped their target price on shares of C3.ai from $30.00 to $24.00 and set a “market outperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, September 4th. KeyCorp dropped their price objective on shares of C3.ai from $18.00 to $10.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, September 4th. DA Davidson restated an “underperform” rating and issued a $13.00 target price on shares of C3.ai in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. Wedbush reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $20.00 price target on shares of C3.ai in a report on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, Canaccord Genuity Group reiterated a “hold” rating and issued a $16.00 price target on shares of C3.ai in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and five have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and a consensus price target of $21.92.

C3.ai Price Performance

Shares of C3.ai stock traded up $0.14 during trading on Friday, hitting $13.62. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 2,125,682 shares, compared to its average volume of 5,316,817. The stock has a market cap of $1.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -4.83 and a beta of 1.97. C3.ai has a 52 week low of $12.59 and a 52 week high of $38.58. The stock has a 50-day moving average price of $14.95 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $18.80.

C3.ai (NYSE:AI) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, December 3rd. The company reported ($0.25) EPS for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.33) by $0.08. C3.ai had a negative return on equity of 46.51% and a negative net margin of 108.06%.The company had revenue of $75.15 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $74.86 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.06) earnings per share. The firm’s quarterly revenue was down 20.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts predict that C3.ai will post -2.44 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling at C3.ai

In other C3.ai news, CFO Hitesh Lath sold 15,042 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, December 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $14.38, for a total value of $216,303.96. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 223,120 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $3,208,465.60. This represents a 6.32% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, Chairman Thomas M. Siebel sold 554,802 shares of C3.ai stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, October 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $18.82, for a total value of $10,441,373.64. Following the sale, the chairman directly owned 1,955,300 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $36,798,746. The trade was a 22.10% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold 1,713,927 shares of company stock valued at $27,664,156 over the last three months. 26.50% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the stock. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its stake in C3.ai by 5.9% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,813,233 shares of the company’s stock valued at $69,129,000 after acquiring an additional 156,925 shares in the last quarter. 111 Capital bought a new position in shares of C3.ai during the second quarter valued at about $714,000. Magnetar Financial LLC bought a new position in shares of C3.ai during the second quarter valued at about $556,000. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. boosted its holdings in C3.ai by 1,481.6% during the second quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. now owns 502,173 shares of the company’s stock worth $12,338,000 after purchasing an additional 470,422 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Dynamic Technology Lab Private Ltd bought a new stake in C3.ai in the 2nd quarter worth about $1,063,000. 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.