Contrasting Nutanix (NASDAQ:NTNX) and C3.ai (NYSE:AI)

C3.ai (NYSE:AI) and Nutanix (NASDAQ:NTNX) are both computer and technology companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, risk, profitability and valuation.

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for C3.ai and Nutanix, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
C3.ai	6	6	1	0	1.62
Nutanix	0	8	10	0	2.56

C3.ai presently has a consensus price target of $10.67, suggesting a potential upside of 24.25%. Nutanix has a consensus price target of $60.00, suggesting a potential upside of 8.87%. Given C3.ai’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe C3.ai is more favorable than Nutanix.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

39.0% of C3.ai shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 85.3% of Nutanix shares are owned by institutional investors. 26.5% of C3.ai shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 2.4% of Nutanix shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, large money managers and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares C3.ai and Nutanix’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
C3.ai	-187.95%	-62.44%	-50.47%
Nutanix	10.03%	-38.96%	8.55%

Risk & Volatility

C3.ai has a beta of 2.06, indicating that its stock price is 106% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Nutanix has a beta of 0.61, indicating that its stock price is 39% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares C3.ai and Nutanix”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
C3.ai	$250.27 million	5.33	-$470.37 million	($3.34)	-2.57
Nutanix	$2.54 billion	5.87	$188.37 million	$0.95	58.01

Nutanix has higher revenue and earnings than C3.ai. C3.ai is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Nutanix, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Nutanix beats C3.ai on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About C3.ai

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. It also offers C3 AI applications, including C3 AI Inventory Optimization, a solution to optimize raw material, in-process, and finished goods inventory levels; C3 AI Supply Network Risk, which identifies emerging inbound and outbound risks across the network; C3 AI Sustainability Suite, which helps to decrease greenhouse gas emission; C3 AI Production Schedule Optimization, a solution for scheduling production; C3 AI Financial Services Suite, which helps to minimize compliance risks; and C3 AI Energy Management solution. In addition, it offers integrated turnkey enterprise AI applications for oil and gas, chemicals, utilities, manufacturing, financial services, defense, intelligence, aerospace, healthcare, and telecommunications market. It has strategic partnerships with Baker Hughes in the areas of oil and gas market; Booz Allen to provide solutions to government, defense, and intelligence sectors; Raytheon; and AWS, Google, and Microsoft. The company was formerly known as C3 IoT, Inc. and changed its name to C3.ai, Inc. in June 2019. C3.ai, Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is headquartered in Redwood City, California.

About Nutanix

Nutanix, Inc. engages in the provision of a cloud platform leveraging web-scale engineering and consumer-grade design. It operates through the following geographic segments: United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia Pacific, and Other Americas. The firm also provides software solutions and cloud services to customers’ enterprise infrastructure. The company was founded by Dheeraj Pandey, Ajeet Singh, and Mohit Aron in 2009 and is headquartered in San Jose, CA.