May 20, 4:44 pm
Five companies with AI Scores below 25 and alternative data flashing red across the board. Revenue declines, insider selling, collapsing web traffic, and employee sentiment at rock bottom. Here's what the data shows.
Traditional screeners flag low PE ratios or declining earnings. They miss the earlier signals: the job postings drying up, the employees losing faith in the company's direction, the web traffic falling off a cliff months before the stock reflects it. Whether you're looking to short or just trying to avoid buying into a deteriorating business, alternative data can help you evaluate where a company is actually headed.
We pulled every stock in our database with an AI Score below 25, then filtered for companies with the most bearish alternative data signals. You can see the full list on our stocks to short screener. Out of that screen, five stood out. Each one has a different story, but the pattern is the same: the alt data turned negative before the headlines caught up.
Our AI Score rates every stock from 0 to 100 using over 25 alternative data signals. Scores above 60 indicate a buy signal. Scores between 40 and 59 are holds. Below 40 is a sell. The five stocks on this list all score below 25, which puts them in the bottom tier of the entire market.
But a low score alone isn't enough to make this list. We also looked for convergence: multiple unrelated signals all pointing in the same direction. When job postings are declining AND web traffic is falling AND employees are pessimistic AND insiders are selling, that's not one data point. That's a pattern. For a broader view of bearish setups, see our regularly updated best stocks to short page and our short squeeze leaderboard.
Here are the five.
Chegg (CHGG)
NYSE · Education Technology
AI Score
Price
$1.22
Market Cap
$115M
AI Target
$0.86
Rev Growth YoY
-47.9%
Chegg was once the dominant online homework help platform. Then ChatGPT launched, and the business model collapsed almost overnight. We covered Chegg's web traffic collapse earlier this year, and the situation has only gotten worse. Revenue is down 47.9% year-over-year with a negative profit margin of -26.9%.
The alternative data tells the same story. Web traffic has dropped 18.9% in just three months, falling from 7.0 million to 5.7 million monthly visits. The company lists 13 job posts, which is up by in the last couple of months but the number of employees, according to LinkedIn has shrunk 6.1% in the same period, from 7,185 to 6,749. These aren't signs of a company restructuring. They're signs of a company contracting.
Social media engagement is fading too. Instagram followers are down 1% over three months. X followers have declined 0.5%. TikTok is the one bright spot, up 3%, but that's a consumer attention metric for a product people are abandoning. Only 28% of employees report a positive business outlook, which means more than half the workforce is pessimistic about the company's future.
Chegg's management is pivoting toward licensing its content library for AI model training. It's a survival play, not a growth strategy. Zero analysts rate it a buy. Six rate it a hold. Three rate it a sell. Our AI Score of 20 places it deep in sell territory, and our AI target price of $0.86 implies another 29% downside from here.
Beyond Meat (BYND)
NASDAQ · Food Products
AI Score
Price
$0.79
Market Cap
$393M
AI Target
$0.64
Short Ratio
63 days
Beyond Meat went public at $25 in 2019 and touched $234 the same year. Today it trades under a dollar. Revenue declined 15.3% year-over-year in Q1 2026, and the company guided Q2 revenue of $60-65 million, below the $67 million consensus. The plant-based meat revolution that was supposed to displace animal protein never materialized at scale. BYND remains one of the most watched names on our meme stocks tracker, but the fundamentals behind the hype have only deteriorated.
Our AI Score dropped from 44 to 22 in just three months. That's the sharpest decline on this list. The company has 10 open job posts for a workforce of just 907 people. And only 34% of employees report having a positive business outlook. When only a third of your employees believe the company has a positive future, the people closest to the operations are telling you something.
The short interest is extreme: 14.7 million shares with a short ratio of 63 days to cover. That creates squeeze risk (see our short squeeze stocks tracker for real-time rankings), and it explains why BYND was heavily hyped on Reddit back in October, with thousands of mentions per day. But that looked like a classic rug pull. The stock is right back where it started, and the hype has faded to just 3 Reddit mentions today.
Insider selling hasn't stopped either. In April, insiders Teri L. Witteman and Lubi Kutua sold shares worth a combined $280,000. When insiders are selling a sub-dollar stock, it's not for tax planning. Five of six analysts rate BYND a sell, and the lone holdout rates it a hold. Our AI target of $0.64 implies another 20% downside.
Estée Lauder (EL)
NYSE · Consumer Staples
AI Score
Price
$78.20 -31.3% (3m)
Market Cap
$28.9B
AI Target
$62.99
PE Ratio
124x
Estée Lauder is the stock on this list that surprises people. This is a $29 billion company, a household name, a stock that traded at $347 in January 2022. Today it sits at $78. The stock has lost 31.3% in the last three months alone, and it's down over 75% from its all-time high.
Revenue has been declining for three consecutive years. Annual revenue dropped from $17.7 billion in 2022 to $14.8 billion in the trailing twelve months. The PE ratio of 124x is absurd for a company with negative profit margins (-1.7%). You're paying a premium multiple for a business that's shrinking and losing money.
The alternative data is uniformly negative. Web traffic fell 18.2% in three months, from 1.4 million to 1.2 million monthly visits. Instagram followers declined 1.2%, from 4.59 million to 4.54 million, which is unusual for a consumer beauty brand. Business outlook among employees is trending down, with only 38% of employees having a bullish business outlook. That's the second lowest on this list, and it signals that the people inside the company don't see a turnaround coming soon.
Our AI Score plunged from 32 to 20 over three months. That's the kind of deterioration that doesn't reverse quickly. The travel retail segment, historically a growth driver, saw revenues decline 28% year-over-year. Management is exploring a potential merger with Spanish beauty group Puig, which reads more like a survival play than a strategic expansion. Our AI target price of $62.99 implies 19% more downside from the current level.
All 5 stocks scored below 25
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Western Union (WU)
NYSE · Financial Services
AI Score
Price
$8.58 -5.1% (3m)
Market Cap
$2.6B
AI Target
$6.93
Profit Margin
10.9%
Western Union is the only stock on this list with zero bullish alternative data signals. Not one. Every single signal we track is either negative or neutral. That kind of uniform bearishness is rare, and it paints a picture of a company being disrupted from every direction simultaneously.
The disruption is fintech. Wise, Remitly, and cryptocurrency-based remittance services have been eating into Western Union's core business for years. Revenue declined 0.1% year-over-year, which sounds flat until you realize this is a mature company that should be growing just to stay relevant. Job postings were cut in half over three months, dropping from 196 to 99. That's the kind of hiring freeze you see when a company is pulling back from growth investments.
Our AI Score fell from 36 to 21 in three months. 40% of employees report a bullish business outlook. Web traffic is essentially flat at 9.2 million visits, but that's a company with $4 billion in annual revenue and a global brand. For comparison, Shutterstock generates six times more web traffic with a fraction of Western Union's revenue. The digital presence is not matching the brand's legacy.
Insider activity reinforces the bearish picture. Benjamin Carlton Adams sold shares worth approximately $160,000 just a couple of weeks ago. Half of all analysts covering the stock rate it a sell, and the other half are holds. Zero buy ratings. Our AI target of $6.93 implies 19% downside, and the AI Score of 21 keeps it firmly in sell territory.
Shutterstock (SSTK)
NYSE · Digital Media
AI Score
Price
$15.58
Market Cap
$614M
AI Target
$12.96
Rev Growth YoY
-17.9%
If Chegg shows what happens when AI replaces your service, Shutterstock shows what happens when AI replaces your product. AI image generators like Midjourney, DALL-E, and Stable Diffusion have made it trivially easy to create stock-quality images without paying for a subscription. Revenue is down 17.9% year-over-year, and the profit margin has gone negative at -2.2%.
The alternative data is bleak. Job postings collapsed 63.6% in three months, dropping from 11 to just 4. That's the most dramatic hiring decline on this list. And the employees are bearish, with only 24% have a positive business outlook, the absolute lowest of any stock we analyzed. When three-quarters of your employees don't believe the company is headed in the right direction, the internal view of the business is dire.
Web traffic is down an estimated 11% over three months, roughly flat over 12 months, which means the decline is accelerating. Instagram followers dropped 1.0%, from 399,738 to 395,764. For a visual content company, losing followers on a visual platform is particularly symbolic.
On top of the structural decline, the FTC just announced a $35 million settlement with Shutterstock over allegations of deceptive practices. The proposed merger with Getty Images is under CMA scrutiny in the UK. Our AI Score fell from 31 to 22, and our AI target of $12.96 implies 17% further downside. The PE ratio of 14x might look reasonable in isolation, but you're buying earnings that are declining with no clear floor.
AltIndex AI Score Data
Two of these five companies (Chegg and Shutterstock) are being directly disrupted by artificial intelligence. One (Beyond Meat) is a failed consumer thesis. One (Estée Lauder) is a blue-chip that lost its way. And one (Western Union) is being slowly replaced by fintech.
But the alternative data patterns are almost identical across all five. Job postings declining or frozen. Employee business outlook below 50%. Web traffic falling. Social media followers stagnating or shrinking. These are the operational vital signs of a business, and they're all flashing red.
AltIndex Alternative Data
The key insight is timing. Most of these signals turned negative before the stock price fully reflected the deterioration. Our AI Score for Beyond Meat was 44 three months ago. Today it's 22. Estée Lauder went from 32 to 20. Western Union from 36 to 21. The scores fell first. The stocks followed.
This doesn't mean these stocks will continue to decline forever. BYND carries extreme short interest and could squeeze. EL has the Puig merger as a potential catalyst. But the alternative data is telling a consistent story across all five: operational momentum is not trending in the right direction.
Whether you're actively shorting or just building a watchlist of stocks to avoid, alternative data adds a dimension that traditional screens miss. A company can report earnings that beat by a penny and still be losing employees, web traffic, and brand engagement every month. These five stocks all have AI Scores below 25, and the underlying signals show why. For more bearish setups updated daily, check our stocks to short screener and short squeeze tracker.
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Get Started for Free →Sources: AltIndex AI Score data, AltIndex job postings data, AltIndex web traffic data, AltIndex employee sentiment data, AltIndex social media data, company SEC filings, Yahoo Finance, TipRanks. Stock prices and financial data as of May 20, 2026. This article does not constitute investment advice.
Disclosure: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. AltIndex aggregates publicly available alternative data signals. Past signal performance does not guarantee future results. Always do your own due diligence before making investment decisions.
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