CE 100 Index Jumps 5.2% as C3.ai and Snowflake Surge by Double Digits

Artificial intelligence — specifically, AI companies that have been riding the wave of simulating human cognition — powered the CE 100 Index 5.2% higher through the past week.

All pillars gained ground.  The Enablers segment of the CE 100 Index roared ahead by 8.1%.

C3.ai Leads the Surge

Within that group, C3.ai shares leaped 42.9%.

This past week, the company and Microsoft said they have expanded their strategic partnership to accelerate the adoption of enterprise AI on the cloud computing platform Microsoft Azure.  The partnership stretches back to 2018.

Under their new agreement, Microsoft is the preferred cloud provider for C3 AI offerings, and C3 AI is the preferred application software provider for Microsoft Azure.  The companies will also collaborate on technical integration, product development, joint delivery of their integrated solutions and joint sales, marketing and customer support.  In addition, they will immediately deliver all C3.ai Enterprise AI solutions across Azure sales channels.

Snowflake rallied 32.6%. As PYMNTS reported this past week, Snowflake, which markets itself as “the AI Data Cloud company,” reported third-quarter product revenue of $900.3 million, up 29% from a year earlier. The company’s remaining performance obligations, representing contracted future revenue, grew 55% to $5.7 billion. Snowflake expanded its base of large customers, now serving 542 organizations with trailing 12-month product revenue exceeding $1 million, up 25% year over year.

Also within the Enablers segment of the CE 10 Index, Nvidia, which had been volatile heading into its earnings report, was off by 0.2%.  The company posted 94% year-over-year revenue growth to $35.1 billion in the third quarter, buoyed by large language model (LLM) development and surging AI usage.

Alphabet Loses Ground on DOJ Suit

Shares of Alphabet were 3.8% lower. The US Department of Justice has filed a suit calling for Google to divest its Chrome browser.  In its court filing, the government said forcing Google to sell Chrome would make for a more equitable search engine market and “will permanently stop Google’s control of this critical search access point and allow rival search engines the ability to access the browser that for many users is a gateway to the internet.”

In the Paid and Be Paid Segment of the CE 100 Index, which gained 5.8%, BNPL names continued to advance. Sezzle shares were 23% higher and Affirm gained more than 18%. Affirm and Priceline said this week that they have expanded their partnership. The new collaboration makes Affirm the BNPL provider for Priceline Partner Solutions, the company’s B2B business. This means that Priceline partner brands — spanning industries including hotels, airlines and car rental services — can begin offering travelers the ability to schedule trips and pay over time via their own websites, Affirm said.

Visa’s shares were 0.1% lower. Visa Direct, Zelis and Dash Solutions have teamed up to simplify and expedite healthcare disbursements.

This collaboration allows members to choose their preferred payment method and receive payments within minutes of approval, the companies said.  The collaboration brings together Dash Solutions’ Dash Digital platform, which features  SendIT technology for managing a wide array of payments; Visa Direct’s global payment and real-time money movement network; and the Zelis Advanced Payments Platform.

Pinduoduo shares sank nearly 13%, representing the most significant decline in the CE 100 Index.  As reported by South China Morning Post, Zhong Shanshan, China’s second-richest individual and founder and chairman of China’s largest packaged drinks company, Nongfu Spring, “lashed out” at Pinduoduo for exacerbating an industry-wide price war.

“The internet platforms have brought down the prices, in particular the pricing system of Pinduoduo — they are a huge harm for Chinese brands and Chinese industries,” Zhong said in a speech delivered last week.