Financial News
AI's Take On The Overvalued Freeport-McMoRan Inc Stock
Freeport-McMoRan Inc โ often shorthanded as Freeport โ closed down 1.83% on Thursday to $31.61 per share, dipping harder than the broader markets. The day's end marked a staggering 27 million trades for the mining company, despite continuing a recent pattern of falling stock prices as seen against the 10-day price average of $35.22. However, stock prices are still up almost 16.5% for the year. Currently, the company is trading with a forward 12-month P/E of 12.65. Freeport-McMoRan is a leading international mining company with headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona.
Robotics Firm UiPath Files for IPO After $35B Valuation
UiPath, a New York robotics automation company, on Friday said it had filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering. The move comes not long after UiPath raised fresh capital from investors at a valuation of $35 billion, making the company one of the most valuable privately held tech businesses in the U.S., CNBC reported. The company, which plans to list on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PATH, aims to raise $1 billion in the IPO, the SEC Form S-1 says. It has not detailed the number of shares it plans to offer or the estimated price range. In the fiscal year ended Jan.
Apple Has Acquired The Most Number of AI Companies Since 2016: Here's What It's Up To
While Google is said to be the champion in artificial intelligence (AI), its fiercest rival Apple seems to be looking to catch up to the Mountain View, California-based giant. According to data shared by data analytics firm GlobalData, Apple acquired the highest number of Artificial Intelligence (AI) companies, ahead of Google, Accenture, Microsoft, and Facebook โ other leaders in terms of AI acquisitions. Apple has bought companies like Emotient, Turi, Glimpse, RealFace, Shazam, SensoMotoric, Silk Labs, Drive.ai, Laserlike, SpectralEdge, Voysis, XNOR.ai, and more over the past few years. These acquisitions come as the company's aim towards improving the AI and machine learning capabilities of its products and services.
From pet food to video games: Inside Ryan Cohen's GameStop obsession
After almost four months of phone calls and emails to GameStop Corp. complaining about the slow shipping of an order, New Jersey teacher Steven Titus received a late night call in early March -- from a director on the video game retailer's board. On the line was Ryan Cohen, the billionaire co-founder and former chief executive of online pet supplies retailer Chewy who is now leading GameStop's push into e-commerce. Cohen was responding to an email Titus had sent 12 hours earlier to more than two dozen GameStop executives and board members. "NOBODY has attempted to respond except a muddled voicemail with no distinguishable callback number or extension. E-commerce requires a customer support team and processes that are responsive," Titus wrote.
AI Is Booming: 2 'Strong Buy' Stocks That Stand to Benefit
The COVID pandemic may be receding, but it has left a mark on across multiple aspects of our lives. From mask mandates to travel restrictions, we chafe at some of the changes โ but in the business world the use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems has dramatically expanded in the past year. This was probably inevitable โ but AI brought advantages in coping with the pandemic for companies that could make use of it, and the expansion accelerated. AI has found its place in a huge range of applications, at both the front and back end of businesses. Itโs prevalent in software management and data systems, as well as in communications, where AI systems filter emails and conduct robochats. And this has not been ignored by Wall Street. Analysts say that plenty of compelling investments can be found within this space. With this in mind, weโve opened up TipRanksโ database, and pulled two stocks which are stand to benefit from AI technology. Importantly, both have amassed enough bullish calls from analysts to be given โStrong Buyโ consensus ratings. Nuance Communications (NUAN) Weโll start with Nuance, a company in the communications software niche. This Massachusetts-based company offers solutions for business clients in the healthcare and customer service industries, with products that enhance speech recognition, telephone call steering systems, automated phone directories, medical transcription, and optical character recognition. Itโs a full range of AI-powered, cloud communications software, applied in real time. Nuanceโs flagship product, the Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) is marketed to the healthcare industry, where it uses AI to automate the paperwork burdens on physician practices and hospitals. This streamlines operations allow doctors more time and resources to spend on patients, and provides greater satisfaction to health care providers and users. The applications of Nuanceโs product and solution lines to the current environment is clear: when the pandemic locked down so many people at home, businesses still had to maintain their customer-facing systems, and software automation, based on AI tech, made that possible with fewer personnel. Since the pandemic started last winter, the company seen its shares grow tremendously, up 205% in the last 12 months, far outpacing the overall stock market. The most recent quarterly report, for fiscal Q1, showed quarterly revenues above the forecast at $81.4 million. EPS showed a net loss, as expected, but at 27 cents the loss was a 28% sequential improvement from Q3. The companyโs balance sheet is strong, with zero debt, $256 million cash on hand, and a credit facility up to $50 million. The companyโs most recent quarterly report, for fiscal Q1, beat the forecasts on both the top and bottom lines. Earnings beat expectations by 11%, coming in at 20 cents per share, while revenues of $345.8 million were a modest 2% above the estimates. As a result, operating cash flow grew 22% year-over-year, to $54.6 million for the quarter. Among the bulls is 5-star analyst Daniel Ives, of Wedbush, who rates NUAN shares an Outperform (i.e. Buy), and his $65 price target implies an upside potential of ~44%. (To watch Ivesโ track record, click here) "We believe Nuance overall continues to be laser focused on building a global cloud healthcare and AI driven business with growing ARR and a sustainable revenue/ earnings stream going forward with larger deals in the field as more hospital- wide deployments shift to the cloud are playing out and gaining further momentum based on our checks," Ives opined. The analyst added, "From a valuation/ SOTP perspective, we believe over time the DAX business alone could be worth between $3 billion to $4 billion to NUAN's stock as this AI next generation platform represents a potential paradigm changer for hospitals/healthcare clinics/specialists over the coming years." Ives is no outlier on Nuance, as shown by the unanimous Strong Buy analyst consensus on the stock. Nuance has received 6 recent reviews, and all are to Buy. The shares are trading for $45.20, and the $59.67 average price target suggests a 32% one-year upside. (See NUAN stock analysis on TipRanks) Dynatrace, Inc. (DT) The second AI stock weโll look at, Dynatrace, is another cloud software company โ but Dynatraceโs products are designed to power business data. The companyโs AI platform brings intelligent automation to network management and cloud monitoring. DTโs platform allows for cloud automation, business analytics, digital experience, application security, applications and microservices, and infrastructure monitoring. Itโs sold as a one-stop-shop for network and system managers seeking an intelligent software agent. Dynatraceโs shares have been showing consistent growth over a long term. The stock is up a robust 133% in the past 12 months, and revenues have also been growing over that period. In the most recent report, for Q3 fiscal year 2021, the company showed $182.9 million in top-line revenue, beating the forecast by ~6% and growing 27% year-over-year. EPS came in at 6 cents, flat from Q2 and far better than the break-even reported for the year-ago quarter. Three key metrics stand out in the quarterly report, and both for the right reasons. Subscription revenue grew 33% year-over-year, to reach $170.3 million, and annual recurring revenue (ARR) โ which is an important predictor of future performance โ grew 35% yoy and came in at $722 million. At the same time, license revenue dropped by more than 93%, to just $300,000. Taken all together, these results point toward a strong shift toward recurring cloud customers โ a common trend in the software space. Needhamโs 5-star analyst Jack Andrews has been closely following Dynatrace, and he believes DTโs AI products may replace incumbent tools as customers expand to additional modules. โEmbedded AIOps and automation creates a compelling value propositionโฆ Compared to competitors in the market, DT's AI Engine is embedded within its core platform and can be levered across the portfolio to deliver answers from data. Moreover, its One Agent technology automatically discovers high-fidelity data from applications and thus can map the billions of dependencies in complex environments," Andrews said. The analyst summed up, "In our view, DT is well-positioned to serve as a single source of truth that can help users trace a line between written code and business outcomes (i.e. BizDevSecOps)." Andrews named Dynatrace as a top pick, and in line with this upbeat assessment, the analyst rates the stock a Buy along with a $66 price target. Ivestors stand to pocket ~28% gain should the analyst's thesis play out. (To watch Andrewsโ track record, click here) Once again, weโre looking at a stock who strong performance has inspired unanimity from the Wall Street analysts. DT shares have 13 Buy reviews, for a Strong Buy consensus rating. The stock sells for $51.76 and its $59.69 average price target suggests ~15% upside from that level. (See DT stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for AI stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanksโ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanksโ 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.
10 Best Artificial Intelligence Stocks to Buy for High ROI
New-age technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics have become an integral part of everyday human life. These technologies are significantly contributing to business transformation, enabling organizations to gain a competitive advantage over their peers. Thanks to its broader features and considerable benefits, more and more companies are investing in artificial intelligence to strengthen and meet their business objectives. Thus, as investing in technology or buying tech stocks have become a business phenomenon today, here are the 10 best artificial intelligence stocks to buy that can generate higher ROI. Tech giant Microsoft is continuously pivoting its way to innovation.
Top Artificial Intelligence Mergers and Acquisitions in 2021
The year 2020 will be set apart as a phenomenal year in history because of the unfavorable impact of Covid around the world. This pandemic has begun acquiring phenomenal changes in some key areas. The advancements of faster drug development, powerful remote care, productive supply chain, and so forth, will proceed into 2021. In the midst of the Covid, 2020 was flighty in a bigger number of ways than anybody would have anticipated. Yet, one thing that remained consistent was the consistent progression of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) across the tech sector.
Chatbot startup Heyday raises $5.1M โ TechCrunch
Montreal-based Heyday announced today that it has raised $6.5 million Canadian ($5.1 million in US dollars) in additional seed funding. Co-founder and CEO Steve Desjarlais told me that the startup's goal is to allow retailers to support more automation and more personalization in their online customer interactions, while co-founder and CMO Etienne Merineau described it as an "all-in-one unified customer messaging platform." So whether a customer is sending a message from Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Google's Business Messages or just via email, Heyday brings all that communication together in one dashboard. It then uses artificial intelligence to determine whether it's a customer service or sales-related interaction, and it automates basic responses when possible. Heyday chatbots can provide order updates or even recommend products (it integrates with Salesforce, Shopify, Magento, Lightspeed and PrestaShop), then route the conversation to a human team member when necessary.
Zeni raises $13.5M to automate bookkeeping with AI
Zeni, an AI-powered finance concierge for startups, today announced it has raised $13.5 million in a series A round led by Saama Capital. The company says this will bolster the launch of its new product, Zeni, an intelligent bookkeeping, accounting, and CFO service available to startups across the U.S. Studies show the vast majority of day-to-day accounting tasks can be automated with software. That may be why over 50% of respondents in a survey conducted by the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants said they anticipate the development of automated and intelligent systems will have a significant impact on accounting businesses over the next 30 years. Zeni, which was founded by twin brothers Swapnil Shinde and Snehal Shinde in 2019, combines AI with a team of finance experts to perform bookkeeping while managing finance functions -- including taxes, bill pay and invoicing, financial projections, budgeting, payroll administration, and more -- on behalf of customers. The Shinde brothers started Zeni after selling their last startup, Mezi, to American Express in 2018 for $125 million and the Indian music streaming service they cofounded, Dhingana, to Rdio in 2014.
Cipher Skin raises $5 million for mesh sensors that detect motion in real time
Cipher Skin, a startup developing a network of wraparound sensors that can deliver big data diagnostics, today announced it has raised $5 million in a series A round led by Boyett Group. The company says the funds, which bring Cipher's total raised to date to $7.8 million, will bolster development of the company's existing product line and new products in markets like oil, gas, and winemaking. After his career in the U.S. special operations forces, Cipher CEO Phillip Bogdanovich started training in the gym with Craig Weller, a physical coach he met when serving in Baghdad. Bogdanovich says that as soon as he was separated from Weller, he noticed his recovery began slowing. While back in the U.S., Bogdanovich and Weller began brainstorming how the training process could be scaled to allow people at home to experience the equivalent of a coach watching and providing feedback.