These 2 Stocks Helped the Market Finish January Strong

Wall Street always likes it when markets have a good January, and major market benchmarks sealed the deal on Tuesday with solid gains to end the month. The Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC) was up double-digit percentages for the month, with the S&P 500 (^GSPC 1.46%) seeing a 6% rise and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 1.09%) bringing up the rear with gains of roughly 3% in January.

Data source: Yahoo! Finance.

There were noteworthy performances from stocks across the market. Two that were particularly interesting were C3.ai (AI 21.78%) and Cvent Holding (CVT 22.83%), both of which had seen substantial declines over the past year before today’s news gave them big lifts. Read on to learn about why these two growth stocks helped lead the markets higher.

C3.ai gets on the ChatGPT bandwagon

Shares of C3.ai were up 22% on Tuesday. The artificial intelligence specialist announced the coming release of a new software product suite, and investors were pleased with one of the features it will offer upon its release.

C3.ai released the first product in its Generative AI Product Suite. The product will concentrate on enterprise search capabilities, giving users the ability to use a natural language interface to find and show data that’s relevant to what they’re looking for throughout their information systems. The platform touts the latest technology in AI, including the recently hyped ChatGPT AI models.

The company intends to release the enterprise search suite in March 2023, and already, users are excited about what the platform will let them do. From supply-chain management and customer-relationship management to ESG and sustainability initiatives, pre-built artificial intelligence applications should help corporate and public-sector customers get more from the data they collect.

The gains in C3.ai took the stock back to its best levels since last summer, but long-term investors are still sitting on huge losses since the company’s initial public offering (IPO) in late 2020. It’ll take a lot for C3.ai to live up to its full potential, but this platform could be a solid start.

Could Cvent sell itself?

Shares of Cvent Holding spent most of the day little changed. However, in the last half-hour of the trading day, the corporate event software specialist soared, finishing the day with a 23% rise in its stock price.

Cvent’s gains came as The Wall Street Journal reported that the company was looking to negotiate a potential sale of its business. The report pointed to alternative investment specialist Blackstone (BX 1.12%) as having possible interest in a purchase of Cvent, although neither Cvent nor Blackstone commented officially for the story.

The reports specified that a deal could price Cvent at about $4 billion. That’s roughly what the current market capitalization of the company is after the stock’s jump on Tuesday.

Like C3.ai, Cvent has also struggled since its shares became available to the public in late 2020 after a period of having been privately held. The company is still posting significant losses, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on corporate events played a key role in depressing its growth rate. Now, however, some shareholders believe that Cvent stock is undervalued in comparison to its future potential, especially as its customers finally start planning new events. If that proves to be the case, then a private equity buyer right now might end up picking up Cvent at an attractive price.