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Shares of C3.ai (NYSE: AI) are up 38% this week enterprise AI platform provider announced surprisingly strong quarterly results that showed its top-line growth continues to accelerate. Revenue was up 18% year over year (speeding up slightly from 17% growth last quarter) fueled by interest in the company’s generative AI offerings — and leaving management comfortable raising their full-year outlook.

Even as other companies have enjoyed incredible AI tailwinds driving accelerated growth at massive scale (*cough* NVIDIA *cough*), C3.ai — one of few actual pure plays in the AI space on the market today — has effectively bored investors with underwhelming revenue growth since its IPO in late 2020. To be fair, that was partly a consequence of the company’s shift just over a year ago to a consumption-based pricing model (and away from a flat subscription model), which significantly boosted the platform’s value proposition to customers but also time hindered near-term revenue growth.

Spoiler: I haven’t added C3.ai to the BLI Premium Portfolio yet as I’ve been waiting for more tangible evidence this acceleration would actually materialize. But now that C3.ai appears to be finally enjoying the fruits of its first-mover advantage in the budding AI space, perhaps this week’s gains will prove only the beginning of a longer-term trend of outperformance. I might look to add on pullbacks going forward.

One note of caution: C3.ai simultaneously announced the departure and replacement of its CFO as well this week. Company Chairman and CEO Tom Siebel (and, indeed, the market for now) shrugged it off as unconcerning. But noting this is the 10th Chief Financial Officer to hold the post in the past decade (C3.ai was founded in 2009), this latest bout of executive turnover could certainly prove to be ammunition for potential short-sellers to try to drive down shares of the currently high-flying stock.

Meanwhile, fellow BLI Watchlist constituent Boston Beer (NYSE: SAM) fell 18% this week after the craft brewer’s latest quarterly concoction left a bad taste in Mr. Market’s mouth.

Beer puns aside, Boston Beer’s revenue declined 12% year over year — though would have fallen 3.1% had it not been for an extra week in the same year-ago quarter — while depletions (an industry measure for how fast product travels from warehouses to consumer outlets — declined 9% (down 1% on a comparable 13-week basis). On the bottom line, that translated to a net loss of $18.1 million, or $1.49 per share.

Blech.

The problem? Boston Beer’s Truly hard seltzer offerings continue to underperform, offsetting gains from Twisted Tea, Samuel Adams non-alcoholic beverages, and Dogfish Head canned cocktails. No mention in the earnings PR of the performance of Boston Beer’s flagship Samuel Adams beers — which seems telling and somewhat concerning.

Founder and Chairman Jim Koch noted gross margin expanded and depletions steadily improved throughout last year.

So what’s an investor to do?

I love its beer, but don’t currently own Boston Beer stock. This quarter gave me little reason to change that. With only a modest improvement in consolidated operations thanks to its “Beyond Beer” portfolio, for now I much prefer another similar — but more diversified — peer, which I’ve already added to the BLI Premium Portfolio.

In case you missed it, earlier this week I profiled Alpha Motor, a young EV startup that’s raising capital on StartEngine and building its business the right way.

You can read my full report on Alpha Motor here.

I had a fantastic chat land was impressed with Alpha Motor’s founding CEO, Edward Lee, and I’m actively planning additional coverage to delve even deeper into his plans to eventually dominate the electric vehicle industry.

Alpha Motor has raised just over $260,000 from 148 investors as of this writing at a $350 million valuation. But noting my colleagues once called me crazy for singling out Tesla as a “value stock” in 2019, I’m unabashedly calling Alpha Motor a value investment in these early stages of its long-term story.

• BLI Premium performance update: As of this writing, the BLI Premium Portfolio is up 12.49%, beating the S&P 500 by 5.08% since launch.

• BLI Premium Members can track and view the portfolio at any time here.

• I’m also actively collaborating with our friends at StockCard.io to make significant improvements to the display and usability of our interactive portfolio tool. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming weeks!

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