SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN) Shares Up 15.4% - Here's What Happened

Key Points

• Shares jumped 15.4% on Friday to about $8.49 with ~12.4M shares traded (down ~54% vs. average daily volume), giving the company a market cap near $3.6B.
• Analyst sentiment is mixed — the consensus is a “Moderate Buy” with a $16.07 average price target, while individual ratings range from Strong Buy to Strong Sell.
• SoundHound beat the latest quarter's EPS and revenue (EPS -$0.03 vs. -$0.09 est.; revenue $42.05M, +67.6% YoY) but remains unprofitable, and insiders have sold shares recently (462,265 shares worth ~$5.2M in the past 90 days).

SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN - Get Free Report)'s share price was up 15.4% during mid-day trading on Friday . The stock traded as high as $8.41 and last traded at $8.4850. Approximately 12,388,554 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 54% from the average daily volume of 26,740,256 shares. The stock had previously closed at $7.35.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

A number of research firms have issued reports on SOUN. Zacks Research downgraded shares of SoundHound AI from a "hold" rating to a "strong sell" rating in a report on Monday, January 12th. Weiss Ratings reissued a "sell (d-)" rating on shares of SoundHound AI in a research report on Friday, January 9th. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH raised shares of SoundHound AI to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, December 18th. DA Davidson set a $14.00 price objective on shares of SoundHound AI in a research note on Thursday, January 8th. Finally, Piper Sandler cut their target price on SoundHound AI from $15.00 to $11.00 and set a "neutral" rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, January 5th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have assigned a Buy rating, two have assigned a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, SoundHound AI has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus price target of $16.07.

SoundHound AI Stock Up 16.9%

The firm has a 50 day moving average of $10.76 and a 200 day moving average of $13.32. The firm has a market cap of $3.61 billion, a PE ratio of -10.23 and a beta of 2.64.

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN - Get Free Report) last released its earnings results on Thursday, November 6th. The company reported ($0.03) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.09) by $0.06. The business had revenue of $42.05 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $40.48 million. SoundHound AI had a negative return on equity of 93.64% and a negative net margin of 211.16%.The business's revenue for the quarter was up 67.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the business posted ($0.04) earnings per share. On average, research analysts anticipate that SoundHound AI, Inc. will post -0.38 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other SoundHound AI news, CEO Keyvan Mohajer sold 144,326 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, December 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $11.28, for a total transaction of $1,627,997.28. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,198,287 shares in the company, valued at $24,796,677.36. This trade represents a 6.16% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this link. Also, CTO Timothy Stonehocker sold 29,676 shares of SoundHound AI stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $12.00, for a total transaction of $356,112.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief technology officer owned 544,179 shares of the company's stock, valued at $6,530,148. The trade was a 5.17% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Insiders sold a total of 462,265 shares of company stock worth $5,216,518 in the last ninety days. 9.17% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On SoundHound AI

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its position in shares of SoundHound AI by 4.4% in the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 45,367,437 shares of the company's stock valued at $452,313,000 after purchasing an additional 1,909,868 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its holdings in SoundHound AI by 8.3% during the 2nd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 8,830,144 shares of the company's stock valued at $94,759,000 after buying an additional 679,436 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its position in shares of SoundHound AI by 9.1% during the second quarter. State Street Corp now owns 8,476,348 shares of the company's stock valued at $90,951,000 after buying an additional 708,369 shares during the period. UBS Group AG lifted its holdings in shares of SoundHound AI by 77.6% in the fourth quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 6,124,283 shares of the company's stock worth $61,059,000 after buying an additional 2,676,707 shares in the last quarter. Finally, MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. boosted its position in shares of SoundHound AI by 13.4% in the third quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 5,697,346 shares of the company's stock valued at $91,604,000 after acquiring an additional 672,714 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 19.28% of the company's stock.

About SoundHound AI

SoundHound AI, Inc is a voice AI and conversational intelligence company specializing in speech recognition, natural language understanding and sound identification technologies. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, the company initially gained recognition with its music discovery app before pivoting to enterprise-grade voice AI solutions. Over the years, SoundHound AI has built a comprehensive platform that enables developers and businesses to embed conversational intelligence into a wide range of products and services.

The company's core offering is the Houndify voice AI platform, which provides customizable speech-to-meaning technology, domain-specific natural language understanding and text-to-speech capabilities.

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