C3.ai (NYSE:AI) Stock Price Down 2.8% on Disappointing Earnings

C3.ai, Inc. (NYSE:AI)’s share price traded down 2.8% on Thursday following a weaker than expected earnings announcement. The company traded as low as $14.80 and last traded at $16.22. 14,924,415 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 141% from the average session volume of 6,181,902 shares. The stock had previously closed at $16.68.

The company reported ($0.86) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.21) by ($0.65). The business had revenue of $70.26 million for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $104.02 million. C3.ai had a negative return on equity of 40.06% and a negative net margin of 92.08%.The company’s revenue for the quarter was down 19.4% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business earned ($0.05) EPS. C3.ai has set its Q2 2026 guidance at EPS.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several analysts have recently issued reports on AI shares. Westpark Capital upgraded shares of C3.ai to a “strong-buy” rating and set a $40.00 target price on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, July 9th. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of C3.ai from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 16th. UBS Group lowered their price target on shares of C3.ai from $23.00 to $16.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday. Oppenheimer restated a “market perform” rating on shares of C3.ai in a research report on Tuesday, August 12th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered their price target on shares of C3.ai from $27.00 to $23.00 and set an “underweight” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, May 29th. One analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, one has assigned a Buy rating, seven have assigned a Hold rating and four have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of “Reduce” and an average target price of $23.00.

Insider Activity

In other C3.ai news, VP Merel Witteveen sold 5,485 shares of C3.ai stock in a transaction dated Monday, June 16th. The shares were sold at an average price of $23.95, for a total transaction of $131,365.75. Following the transaction, the vice president directly owned 13,740 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $329,073. The trade was a 28.53% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CFO Hitesh Lath sold 17,689 shares of C3.ai stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $24.96, for a total transaction of $441,517.44. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 166,218 shares in the company, valued at $4,148,801.28. This trade represents a 9.62% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 2,162,768 shares of company stock valued at $50,525,604 over the last three months. 26.50% of the stock is currently owned by company insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Orion Capital Management LLC acquired a new position in shares of C3.ai in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Raiffeisen Bank International AG acquired a new position in shares of C3.ai in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $36,000. Garde Capital Inc. acquired a new position in shares of C3.ai in the first quarter valued at approximately $29,000. CX Institutional acquired a new position in shares of C3.ai in the first quarter valued at approximately $34,000. Finally, Versant Capital Management Inc grew its holdings in shares of C3.ai by 417.5% in the first quarter. Versant Capital Management Inc now owns 1,868 shares of the company’s stock valued at $39,000 after purchasing an additional 1,507 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 38.96% of the company’s stock.

C3.ai Trading Up 0.7%

The company has a market cap of $2.09 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -5.99 and a beta of 1.96. The firm’s fifty day simple moving average is $22.24 and its 200 day simple moving average is $22.69.

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.