What happened
A midweek bump lifted the share price of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions developer C3.ai (AI 3.02%) over the past few days. Some investors took the opportunity to book profits on the stock, and the sell-off sent the price down again. It was still in positive territory as of early Friday morning, though. According to data compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, week to date at that point it was up by almost 1%.
So what
AI is still an area of high investor interest these days, although the excitement may be dying down a bit now that many associated stocks have rallied substantially in recent weeks to hit very lofty prices.
C3.ai is among the AI titles that are looking rather pricey because of that trend, but it's still garnering plenty of attention. A new follower in the professional financial ranks emerged on Tuesday, with Northland Capital Markets analyst Mike Latimore initiating coverage of the stock.
Alas, Latimore's take on C3.ai was rather lukewarm. He rates the stock only as a market perform (read: hold) at a price target of $40 per share.
Yet he made several bullish points in his inaugural note on the company. He sounded impressed when discussing its "strong technology heritage and extensive list of blue-chip customers." Latimore also feels that C3.ai could draw numerous revenue streams with its business as an AI facilitator for enterprises.
Now what
Few market participants doubt the potential loaded into AI, however stocks like C3.ai are looking very expensive now -- particularly in terms of valuations. Several of these companies, meanwhile, are quite young and in some ways haven't sufficiently proven that they can be viable long-term players in the game.
