Marpai (NASDAQ: MRAI) stock is up 47% on, well, on what? There is no specific news from the company, no obvious objective reason for a jump in MRAI stock. OK, there’s been a little bit of insider buying: “On November 17, 2023, Yaron Eitan made a significant investment in Marpai Inc by purchasing 100,000 shares. This transaction is particularly noteworthy as it represents a substantial increase in his holdings, demonstrating a strong vote of confidence in the company's future.” Hmm. We’re really not sure that $60k or so of insider buying is then worth perhaps $4 million on the market capitalisation. Sure, it’s a good indicator but that’s all it is.
We’ve looked before and weren’t impressed by Marpai: “Marpai (NASDAQ: MRAI) stock was up 90% Thursday. It's difficult to see exactly why this is as there's not much news around and that there is doesn't seem all that interesting. But it does have AI in the corporate name and as we know there's something of an excitement about this new technology. We assume, in the absence of other evidence, that this is what is causing the excitement. Whether that is therefore justified, well, that's a matter for the reader, obviously. Other reasons for Marpai's jump are difficult to find. The most recent corporate announcement was of the annual general meeting and the re-election of the directors. No, that's not the sort of news which doubles a stock price. Well, it doesn't normally at least. Before that there was the annual results and while the purchase of Maestro Health is expanding the client base and revenues it doesn't seem to be doing all that much for the bottom line. Losses for the full year 2022 rose to $51.3 million from the previous year's $30.1 million. This is also not the sort of thing that doubles share prices and anyway that announcement was back on March 29th.”
Marpai stock price from Google Finance
We were right to not be all that impressed too. As the chart shows, the price soon cam down again. There was a flurry in Marpai stock: “Marpai (NASDAQ: MRAI) stock is down 36% premarket on Monday morning after that jump of 90% and more last week. This is not, we would submit, a terrible surprise as stock price rises without much sustenance behind them tend not to be sustained. It is indeed possible to trade the stock price changes in something like MRAI but we've always got to be very careful when doing so.”
Our expectation here is more of the same. Sure, yes, insider buying, but that’s proof that there is no material event that we don’t know about - insiders can’t buy when there is inside information. We expect - but note, expect - the price rise to fade.
