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

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI) saw some unusual options trading activity on Friday. Stock traders purchased 170,377 call options on the company. This represents an increase of 75% compared to the typical daily volume of 97,088 call options.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have weighed in on AI shares. DA Davidson restated an “underperform” rating and set a $13.00 price objective on shares of C3.ai in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Morgan Stanley decreased their price target on shares of C3.ai from $22.00 to $11.00 and set an “underweight” rating for the company in a research report on Tuesday, September 9th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of C3.ai in a report on Wednesday, October 8th. Needham & Company LLC reiterated a “hold” rating on shares of C3.ai in a research note on Thursday, December 4th. Finally, Wedbush reissued an “outperform” rating and issued a $20.00 target price on shares of C3.ai in a research report on Thursday, December 4th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, two have assigned a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and five have given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat.com, C3.ai has an average rating of “Reduce” and a consensus price target of $21.92.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other C3.ai news, Chairman Thomas M. Siebel sold 17,000 shares of C3.ai stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, December 2nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $14.21, for a total value of $241,570.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chairman directly owned 15,736 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $223,608.56. The trade was a 51.93% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CFO Hitesh Lath sold 46,881 shares of C3.ai stock in a transaction on Tuesday, September 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $16.99, for a total value of $796,508.19. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 209,154 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $3,553,526.46. This represents a 18.31% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders have sold 2,226,479 shares of company stock valued at $38,129,955 in the last ninety days. Insiders own 26.50% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in AI. Silicon Valley Capital Partners purchased a new stake in shares of C3.ai during the second quarter valued at $25,000. Larson Financial Group LLC raised its holdings in C3.ai by 683.6% during the 3rd quarter. Larson Financial Group LLC now owns 1,481 shares of the company’s stock worth $26,000 after buying an additional 1,292 shares during the period. Parallel Advisors LLC lifted its stake in C3.ai by 76.4% during the third quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 1,849 shares of the company’s stock valued at $32,000 after buying an additional 801 shares in the last quarter. Financial Consulate Inc. purchased a new stake in C3.ai during the third quarter valued at about $36,000. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. boosted its holdings in shares of C3.ai by 53.7% in the second quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 2,329 shares of the company’s stock worth $57,000 after buying an additional 814 shares during the period. 38.96% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

C3.ai Trading Down 3.9%

AI traded down $0.63 on Friday, hitting $15.29. 4,285,654 shares of the company’s stock were exchanged, compared to its average volume of 6,585,745. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $16.29 and a two-hundred day moving average of $19.94. C3.ai has a twelve month low of $12.59 and a twelve month high of $44.34. The firm has a market cap of $2.11 billion, a PE ratio of -5.40 and a beta of 1.97.

C3.ai (NYSE:AI) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, December 3rd. The company reported ($0.25) earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate 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 firm had revenue of $75.15 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $74.86 million. During the same period last year, the company earned ($0.06) earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 20.3% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts predict that C3.ai will post -2.44 EPS for the current 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.