Chart Events
Performance Outlook
| Previous Close | 138.50 |
| Open | 142.00 |
| Bid | 134.05 x 900 |
| Ask | 135.00 x 1100 |
| Day's Range | 132.60 - 142.49 |
| 52 Week Range | 90.03 - 183.90 |
| Volume | 1,538,931 |
| Avg. Volume | 7,158,196 |
| Market Cap | 12.858B |
| Beta (5Y Monthly) | N/A |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | N/A |
| EPS (TTM) | -0.24 |
| Earnings Date | N/A |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | N/A (N/A) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | N/A |
| 1y Target Est | 147.22 |
- InvestorPlace
With C3.ai Stock Down 22%, Investors Should Still Wait for Better
When C3.ai (NYSE:AI) stock started trading in December, investors initially met shares with unprecedented demand. Prices jumped 300% within two weeks, giving AI stock the dubious award of “priciest tech stock” by Barron’s, a financial magazine. Source: Blackboard / Shutterstock Alas, such bullishness couldn’t last. C3.ai stock went on to lose a third of its value as investors reevaluated their options. With shares now at $138, is it time to pounce? The answer … is complicated. While AI stock is likely worth closer to $200 in the long run, its business model is poorly understood — despite its name, C3.ai is not actually an AI firm. That makes its shares risky: Hot-money investors will pull out when they realize the company will manage 40% to 70% annual growth, not 400% to 700%.InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips Still, C3.ai has one of the best technological platforms in the business. So even if you’re hesitant buying shares at $138, make sure you’re ready to back up that truck the moment the stock ever crosses below $100 again. AI Stock: Red Hat for the 21st Century To understand what C3.ai does, consider the variety of apps that power a work-from-home routine. You might start the day checking emails on Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) Outlook, then schedule meetings on Slack (NYSE:WORK) after logging sales calls on Salesforce (NYSE:CRM). All while trying to set up your toddler on a Zoom (NASDAQ:ZM) playdate. 7 Dividend Stocks That Are Growing Their Payouts Even those who don’t use software regularly all have the shared experience of some obtuse HR software that tells you, “your username wasn’t found in our system.” (But I work here!) It’s a tangle of software providers that rarely work together. C3.ai seeks to solve that problem for enterprise data. Founded in 2009 by veteran Silicon Valley billionaire Thomas M. Siebel, the firm packages various open-source software under a single umbrella. The final product, known as the C3.ai Suite, allows companies to use a single data-management platform. Rather than stitching together dozens of providers themselves, companies can exclusively use C3.ai to collect, distribute and analyze information. It’s not the first time a company has repackaged open-source software for enterprise use. RedHat, founded in 1993, put professional programmers (and a reasonably strong sales team) behind a new operating system Linux, which now runs 90% of public cloud computing services. And more recently, the Cloudera/Hortonworks (NYSE:CLDR) merger has worked to bring Hadoop, a powerful open-source data-networking tool, to enterprise clients. C3.ai, however, takes this a step further. It’s become arguably the best one-stop shop for companies seeking a unified data platform by including no fewer than 17 dimensions in its software suite. And according to an independent analysis by ZDNet, a business technology publication, two core patents at the company solve a long-standing issue of integrating Hadoop into enterprise software. So, even though the C3.ai Suite doesn’t focus on cutting-edge artificial intelligence, it provides the tools needed to run the massive computing power that AI and machine learning need. Growing Pains at C3.ai C3.ai isn’t without its faults. Most problematically, the company is an unabashedly technology-first, sales-second company. No salespeople sit on their executive team. And its lackluster sales performance means that the company’s top-three customers now produce almost 50% of total revenues. Growth has also slowed — the company saw just 11% revenue growth in the six months ending October 2020. These signs point to the same problem: the company needs a higher-quality sales operation. For most high-tech startups, adding a sales team is often a terrifying thought — what high-brow development team wants to “dirty” their ranks with smooth-talking salespeople? But even the highest-quality software won’t sell itself in the competitive B2B (business-to-business) world. Enterprises know that software switching costs are monumental. Most won’t switch services without a firm push from a good sales team. C3.ai has begun to solve this problem. In the past six months, the company more than doubled the stock-based compensation to its sales and marketing team. It’s a necessary first step, but the company still needs to find a winning sales formula to capitalize on its low marginal costs. AI Stock: What Is It Worth? The work-in-progress company has thrown Wall Street analysts into a virtual shouting match. The most bearish of all, J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Murphy, issued a $84 price target on the stock. This suggests a 40% downside. Meanwhile, Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives gave the company a $200 price target — creating a gap wide enough to sail a cruise liner through. In the short term, the truth is somewhere in between. C3.ai desperately needs to nurture its sales team with better management and incentives beyond generous stock options. Without that, the company will likely miss the 14.5% sequential growth that analysts expect, dragging its price to a range of $100 to $120. Longer term, however, C3.ai looks like a clear winner. Its hidden weapon, an enterprise-friendly packaging of Hadoop, is a keystone to any company that wants analytics, machine learning and AI capabilities. That includes everything from catching bank fraud to optimizing supply chains. And as the necessity for data analytics grows, so too will demand for the company’s products. Investors should observe; though the AI stock price looks weak today, it’s a long-term winner among the SaaS companies. On the date of publication, Tom Yeung did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. Tom Yeung, CFA, is a registered investment advisor on a mission to bring simplicity to the world of investing. More From InvestorPlace Why Everyone Is Investing in 5G All WRONG Top Stock Picker Reveals His Next 1,000% Winner It doesn’t matter if you have $500 in savings or $5 million. Do this now. The post With C3.ai Stock Down 22%, Investors Should Still Wait for Better appeared first on InvestorPlace.
- Barrons.com
Stock in ContextLogic, Wish.com’s Parent, Falls as Analysts Weigh In
The online deep-discount retailer operates under the brand name Wish.com. The stock has been under pressure since its IPO in December.
- TipRanks
2 Artificial Intelligence Stocks Leading the New Wave
It's a new year, and good time to take a look at what lies ahead. Not in the short term, but on the longer horizon. So, here’s a number to think about: $126 billion. That’s the predicted size of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology market in 2025. AI, once the sole province of the more arcane branches of computer programming and coding, has become an essential part of the digital world we live in.You can find AI everywhere. It’s in our factories, controlling assembly robots and inventory systems; it’s in cars, monitoring power systems and drive trains – and soon, perhaps, to drive the vehicles; its algorithms lie behind the success of all the online tech companies that have come to dominate our electronic social discourse and economy. AI is everywhere, and it’s here to stay.Which makes it a fantastic sector to mine for investment opportunities. Against this backdrop, two of Wall Street’s top analysts have turned their gaze on AI, and recommended their picks in the sector. We ran the two through TipRanks database to see what other Wall Street's analysts have to say about them. The results are interesting.C3.ai, Inc. (AI)We’ll start with a company that is new to the public trading markets. C3ai is an enterprise AI firm, providing a suite of services designed to build enterprise-scale applications through a cost effective and efficient process. The C3 AI Suite brings configurable apps for customer engagement, energy management, fraud detection, predictive maintenance, and supply chain optimization – and all of that is only the beginning.C3 went public in December 2020, hitting the markets on Dec 9. The company had priced the IPO at $42 per share, but closed its first day at a price of $92, for a 120% gain right out of the gate. C3’s shares went on to peak at $177 on Dec 22, and the stock is now trading at $133, for a net gain since the first day’s close of 44%. The company now boasts a market cap of $12.74 billion.It’s not just the successful IPO that should grab investors’ attention here. C3’s customers include such high-profile names as Bank of America, AstraZeneca, and Koch Industries. The company also has a strategic partnership with Microsoft, using the Azure cloud platform to offer AI tech to the energy industry. And finally, C3 is an important contractor with the Pentagon, and counts the US Air Force, Army Aviation, and US StratCom in its user base.Some Wall Street analysts see C3’s shares as fully valued, but others are bullish on the stock. Among the bulls is Daniel Ives, the 5-star tech sector expert from Wedbush, who rates AI and Outperform (i.e., a Buy). Ives also gives the stock a $200 price target that indicates room for a 51% upside in the next 12 months. (To watch Ives’ track record, click here)In his comments on the stock, Ives explains his stance: “We view C3.ai as one of the more disruptive enterprise software vendors in the last decade with the company laser focused on the convergence of AI, big data, and cloud computing… We believe with a very successful IPO of $650 million completed in December, C3 now finds itself in clear "offensive mode" as its beefed-up distribution strategy (direct sales, MSFT, Baker Hughes) should put more fuel in its growth engine into 2021 and beyond.” The bear-bull mix on AI is clear from the reviews on record for C3. The company has received 10 ratings, breaking down to 4 Buy, 4 Hold, and 2 Sell, making the analyst consensus a Hold. Meanwhile, the average price target stands at $144.89, suggesting room for 9% growth from current levels. (See AI stock analysis on TipRanks)Liveperson (LPSN)Liveperson is well-known as a designer of live chat platforms and chatbot AI systems, marketing these products as customer relations tools at the front end for companies of all sorts. Liveperson’s chat apps are available through web browsers, social media, and on mobile devices, and the company has produced a conversational AI that allows automated chatbots to streamline customer service center efficiency by handling routine communication tasks.The AI chatbots are designed for use on Conversational Cloud, with one human operator overseeing multiple bots in a chat center. The AI handles initial contacts using filtering questions, and is capable of referring more involved issues to the human agent in the loop. Liveperson offers a choice for its customers: to use ready-made chatbots, or to use the platform and create a unique conversational system.Like many tech companies involved in online marcom, Liveperson’s value has been put into sharper relief during this crazy ‘corona year.’ The stock finished 2020 with a gain of 65%. Meanwhile, revenues have slightly increased sequentially since Q2, with the Q3 number of $94.8 million being up 3.4% from Q2 and 26% year-over-year.Liveperson’s proven strength in its niche attracted the attention of Ryan Koontz, 5-star analyst with Rosenblatt.“[We] expect LPSN to leverage its leading position in AI to disrupt the $60B contact center software and automated labor market. Despite facing new threats from larger and more established players in the enterprise market, including Salesforce.com, Twilio, and Oracle, we view the strong focus and 20+ years of experience of LPSN as key assets,” Koontz noted.With this analysis, it's not surprising that Koontz rates LPSN a Buy. His $73 price target implies a 14% upside from current levels. (To watch Koontz’s track record, click here)It’s clear that Wall Street is in broad agreement with Koontz, as shown by the Strong Buy analyst consensus rating and the 8 recent reviews that include 7 Buys against a single Hold. The shares are selling for $63.97, and the $71.17 average price target suggests it has 11% room to grow. (See LPSN stock analysis on TipRanks)To find good ideas for stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.
