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

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI) was the recipient of unusually large options trading activity on Friday. Traders bought 112,478 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of approximately 209% compared to the typical volume of 36,426 call options.

Analyst Ratings Changes

AI has been the subject of several analyst reports. Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $15.00 price objective on shares of C3.ai in a report on Thursday, June 4th. Citizens Jmp reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of C3.ai in a report on Thursday, June 4th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of C3.ai in a research report on Thursday, June 4th. Weiss Ratings cut C3.ai from a “sell (d-)” rating to a “sell (e+)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, June 16th. Finally, KeyCorp reissued an “underweight” rating on shares of C3.ai in a report on Thursday, June 4th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and six have given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, C3.ai has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and a consensus target price of $10.67.

C3.ai Stock Performance

AI opened at $9.18 on Friday. C3.ai has a fifty-two week low of $7.68 and a fifty-two week high of $24.67. The company has a fifty day moving average of $9.60 and a two-hundred day moving average of $9.77. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.43 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.75 and a beta of 2.06.

C3.ai (NYSE:AI) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, June 3rd. The company reported ($0.33) EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.38) by $0.05. C3.ai had a negative return on equity of 62.44% and a negative net margin of 187.95%.The company had revenue of $51.60 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $51.60 million. During the same period last year, the company earned ($0.16) earnings per share. C3.ai’s quarterly revenue was down 52.5% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities research analysts forecast that C3.ai will post -2.28 earnings per share for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other C3.ai news, CFO Hitesh Lath sold 48,619 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 30th. The stock was sold at an average price of $8.77, for a total value of $426,388.63. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 383,106 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,359,839.62. This trade represents a 11.26% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, CEO Stephen Bradley Ehikian sold 50,542 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, July 1st. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.45, for a total value of $477,621.90. Following the sale, the chief executive officer owned 651,130 shares in the company, valued at $6,153,178.50. The trade was a 7.20% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders sold a total of 1,155,144 shares of company stock worth $11,420,651 in the last 90 days. 26.50% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On C3.ai

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in AI. Bank of America Corp DE increased its position in C3.ai by 55.1% during the first quarter. Bank of America Corp DE now owns 3,282,183 shares of the company’s stock worth $27,636,000 after purchasing an additional 1,166,302 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in C3.ai by 77.1% during the third quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 1,804,188 shares of the company’s stock worth $31,284,000 after purchasing an additional 785,508 shares during the period. 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. Finally, Federated Hermes Inc. grew its stake in shares of 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 buying an additional 674,703 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 38.96% of the company’s stock.

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.