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

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI) was the target of unusually large options trading activity on Friday. Stock investors acquired 126,333 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 122% compared to the average daily volume of 56,821 call options.

Insider Activity

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

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its position in C3.ai by 0.8% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 14,469,953 shares of the company’s stock worth $195,055,000 after purchasing an additional 108,011 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley increased its holdings in C3.ai by 1.9% in the 4th quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 4,824,499 shares of the company’s stock valued at $65,034,000 after buying an additional 91,802 shares during the period. State Street Corp raised its stake in shares of C3.ai by 3.3% in the 4th quarter. State Street Corp now owns 2,976,389 shares of the company’s stock valued at $40,122,000 after buying an additional 94,086 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its stake in shares of C3.ai by 0.8% in the 4th quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,868,578 shares of the company’s stock valued at $38,675,000 after buying an additional 21,451 shares in the last quarter. Finally, MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. lifted its holdings in shares of C3.ai by 9.6% during the 3rd quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 2,425,976 shares of the company’s stock worth $42,066,000 after acquiring an additional 211,786 shares during the period. 38.96% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several equities analysts recently weighed in on the company. UBS Group reissued a “reduce” rating on shares of C3.ai in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. BMO Capital Markets set a $7.00 target price on C3.ai in a report on Thursday, February 26th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. dropped their price target on C3.ai from $10.00 to $7.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. DA Davidson cut their price target on C3.ai from $13.00 to $7.00 and set an “underperform” rating for the company in a report on Thursday, February 26th. Finally, Wolfe Research reissued an “underperform” rating and issued a $6.00 price objective on shares of C3.ai in a research report on Thursday, February 26th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has assigned a Buy rating, seven have given a Hold rating and six have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, C3.ai has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and an average target price of $15.87.

C3.ai Stock Performance

NYSE AI opened at $8.63 on Friday. The firm has a 50-day simple moving average of $9.77 and a 200 day simple moving average of $13.59. C3.ai has a twelve month low of $7.68 and a twelve month high of $30.24. The stock has a market cap of $1.25 billion, a PE ratio of -2.74 and a beta of 2.08.

C3.ai (NYSE:AI) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 25th. The company reported ($0.40) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.29) by ($0.11). The firm had revenue of $53.26 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $75.91 million. C3.ai had a negative net margin of 141.35% and a negative return on equity of 55.40%. The company’s revenue was down 46.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm earned ($0.12) earnings per share. Research analysts forecast that C3.ai will post -2.44 earnings per share 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.