C3.ai (NYSE:AI) Shares Gap Down After Earnings Miss

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI)’s stock price gapped down prior to trading on Thursday following a weaker than expected earnings announcement. The stock had previously closed at $26.44, but opened at $24.95. C3.ai shares last traded at $24.28, with a volume of 3,244,143 shares changing hands.

The company reported ($0.62) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.25) by ($0.37). The company had revenue of $98.78 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $98.12 million. C3.ai had a negative return on equity of 31.31% and a negative net margin of 79.17%.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have recently issued reports on AI. DA Davidson dropped their price target on C3.ai from $40.00 to $25.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. JMP Securities increased their target price on shares of C3.ai from $40.00 to $55.00 and gave the stock a “market outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 10th. Northland Securities boosted their price target on shares of C3.ai from $35.00 to $45.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a report on Tuesday, December 10th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. cut shares of C3.ai from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and set a $28.00 price target for the company. in a research report on Wednesday, December 11th. Finally, 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 report on Thursday. Five equities research 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’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $31.33.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Director Richard C. Levin sold 12,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, February 3rd. The stock was sold at an average price of $29.84, for a total transaction of $358,080.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 161,664 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,824,053.76. The trade was a 6.91 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. Also, CFO Hitesh Lath sold 11,339 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, December 9th. The shares were sold at an average price of $42.00, for a total value 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 approximately $35,742. This represents a 93.02 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last quarter, insiders sold 1,643,311 shares of company stock valued at $59,736,620. 33.54% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On C3.ai

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the business. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in C3.ai by 12.3% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 844,389 shares of the company’s stock worth $20,460,000 after acquiring an additional 92,280 shares during the last quarter. PDT Partners LLC purchased a new position in C3.ai in the 3rd quarter worth approximately $1,624,000. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC boosted its holdings in shares of C3.ai by 70.9% during the 4th quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 55,339 shares of the company’s stock worth $1,905,000 after purchasing an additional 22,949 shares during the last quarter. Strategic Financial Concepts LLC purchased a new stake in shares of C3.ai in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $2,015,000. Finally, Friedenthal Financial acquired a new stake in shares of C3.ai in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $757,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 38.96% of the company’s stock.

C3.ai Stock Down 10.0 %

The stock has a 50-day moving average of $32.65 and a 200 day moving average of $29.55. The stock has a market cap of $3.07 billion, a PE ratio of -10.77 and a beta of 1.98.

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.