Stock Traders Purchase Large Volume of Call Options on C3.ai (NYSE:AI)

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI) saw some unusual options trading activity on Thursday. Investors purchased 119,687 call options on the stock. This is an increase of approximately 57% compared to the typical volume of 76,415 call options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently commented on the stock. StockNews.com raised shares of C3.ai to a “sell” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 26th. KeyCorp cut their price objective on shares of C3.ai from $29.00 to $21.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. DA Davidson cut their price objective on shares of C3.ai from $40.00 to $25.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Northland Securities boosted their price objective on shares of C3.ai from $35.00 to $45.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research report on Tuesday, December 10th. Finally, Piper Sandler cut their price objective on shares of C3.ai from $42.00 to $28.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Five analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating, four have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $31.33.

Insider Activity

In other news, Director Jim H. Snabe sold 499,700 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $43.05, for a total value of $21,512,085.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 10,000 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $430,500. The trade was a 98.04 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Hitesh Lath sold 11,339 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $42.00, for a total transaction of $476,238.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer now directly owns 851 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $35,742. This trade represents a 93.02 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 1,643,311 shares of company stock valued at $59,736,620 in the last quarter. Company insiders own 33.54% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On C3.ai

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of AI. Brown Lisle Cummings Inc. grew its stake in C3.ai by 100.0% in the 4th quarter. Brown Lisle Cummings Inc. now owns 800 shares of the company’s stock valued at $28,000 after buying an additional 400 shares during the last quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. grew its stake in C3.ai by 100.7% in the 4th quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 909 shares of the company’s stock valued at $31,000 after buying an additional 456 shares during the last quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. grew its stake in C3.ai by 3.4% in the 3rd quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 14,078 shares of the company’s stock valued at $341,000 after buying an additional 457 shares during the last quarter. Legal & General Group Plc grew its stake in C3.ai by 0.4% in the 4th quarter. Legal & General Group Plc now owns 119,144 shares of the company’s stock valued at $4,102,000 after buying an additional 517 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Geneos Wealth Management Inc. grew its stake in C3.ai by 72.4% in the 4th quarter. Geneos Wealth Management Inc. now owns 1,322 shares of the company’s stock valued at $46,000 after buying an additional 555 shares during the last quarter. 38.96% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

C3.ai Price Performance

Shares of NYSE:AI opened at $23.80 on Friday. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $32.65 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $29.55. C3.ai has a one year low of $18.85 and a one year high of $45.08. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.07 billion, a PE ratio of -10.77 and a beta of 1.98.

C3.ai (NYSE:AI) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, February 26th. The company reported ($0.62) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.25) by ($0.37). The firm had revenue of $98.78 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $98.12 million. C3.ai had a negative net margin of 79.17% and a negative return on equity of 31.31%. On average, analysts anticipate that C3.ai will post -2.44 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

C3.ai Company Profile

C3.ai, Inc operates as an enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) software company in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Asia Pacific, and internationally. The company provides C3 AI platform, an application development and runtime environment that enables customers to design, develop, and deploy enterprise AI applications; C3 AI Ex Machina for analysis-ready data; C3 AI CRM, an industry specific customer relationship management solution; and C3 Generative AI Product Suite that enables to locate, retrieve, and present information.