SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN) Trading Up 14.6% After Analyst Upgrade

Key Points

• SoundHound AI's stock surged 14.6% after LADENBURG THALM/SH SH upgraded it from neutral to buy, with a new price target of $16.00, up from $9.00. The stock experienced a significant increase in trading volume.
• Several analysts have recently raised their ratings for SoundHound AI, with at least three analysts giving buy or outperform ratings, contributing to an average rating of "Moderate Buy" for the stock.
• In recent insider trading, COO Michael Zagorsek and another insider sold significant shares at an average price of $9.36, reflecting a notable decrease in their ownership percentages.

SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN - Get Free Report)'s stock price traded up 14.6% during trading on Monday after LADENBURG THALM/SH SH upgraded the stock from a neutral rating to a buy rating. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH now has a $16.00 price target on the stock, up from their previous price target of $9.00. SoundHound AI traded as high as $16.03 and last traded at $15.53. 73,277,618 shares traded hands during trading, an increase of 81% from the average session volume of 40,527,574 shares. The stock had previously closed at $13.55.

A number of other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports on the stock. Wedbush upped their price objective on shares of SoundHound AI from $15.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock an "outperform" rating in a report on Friday. Northland Capmk raised shares of SoundHound AI from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Friday. Wall Street Zen lowered shares of SoundHound AI from a "hold" rating to a "sell" rating in a research report on Saturday. Northland Securities raised shares of SoundHound AI from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and set a $14.50 target price for the company in a research report on Friday. Finally, Piper Sandler reissued a "neutral" rating and set a $12.00 target price on shares of SoundHound AI in a research report on Monday, July 14th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have issued a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has an average rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $13.36.

Insider Buying and Selling at SoundHound AI

In related news, COO Michael Zagorsek sold 117,180 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.36, for a total value of $1,096,804.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief operating officer owned 1,346,455 shares of the company's stock, valued at $12,602,818.80. This represents a 8.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, insider James Ming Hom sold 79,530 shares of the company's stock in a transaction dated Friday, June 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.36, for a total transaction of $744,400.80. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 637,560 shares in the company, valued at $5,967,561.60. This represents a 11.09% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold 957,474 shares of company stock valued at $9,209,697 in the last three months. Company insiders own 9.17% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of SoundHound AI

Several hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in SoundHound AI by 9.5% in the first quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 35,059,943 shares of the company's stock valued at $284,687,000 after buying an additional 3,028,281 shares during the period. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. raised its holdings in SoundHound AI by 84.2% in the first quarter. MIRAE ASSET GLOBAL ETFS HOLDINGS Ltd. now owns 4,973,728 shares of the company's stock worth $40,390,000 after purchasing an additional 2,274,105 shares during the period. Rockefeller Capital Management L.P. acquired a new stake in shares of SoundHound AI during the fourth quarter worth $41,595,000. Invesco Ltd. raised its holdings in shares of SoundHound AI by 1,386.2% during the fourth quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 1,382,371 shares of the company's stock worth $27,426,000 after acquiring an additional 1,289,360 shares during the period. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its holdings in shares of SoundHound AI by 69.8% during the first quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 2,639,689 shares of the company's stock worth $21,434,000 after acquiring an additional 1,085,473 shares during the period. 19.28% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

SoundHound AI Trading Up 15.6%

The firm's 50 day simple moving average is $10.76 and its 200-day simple moving average is $10.45. The stock has a market capitalization of $6.29 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -24.87 and a beta of 2.57.

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN - Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, August 7th. The company reported ($0.19) EPS for the quarter, missing analysts' consensus estimates of ($0.06) by ($0.13). SoundHound AI had a negative net margin of 171.81% and a negative return on equity of 77.38%. The firm had revenue of $42.68 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $32.88 million. During the same period last year, the business earned ($0.11) EPS. The business's revenue was up 216.3% on a year-over-year basis. As a group, equities research analysts predict that SoundHound AI, Inc. will post -0.38 earnings per share for the current year.

SoundHound AI Company Profile

SoundHound AI, Inc develops independent voice artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that enables businesses across automotive, TV, and IoT, and to customer service industries to deliver high-quality conversational experiences to their customers. Its products include Houndify platform that offers a suite of Houndify tools to help brands build conversational voice assistants, such as Application Programming Interfaces (API) for text and voice queries, support for custom commands, extensive library of content domains, inclusive software development kit platforms, collaboration capabilities, diagnostic tools, and built-in analytics; SoundHound Chat AI that integrates with knowledge domains, pulling real-time data like weather, sports, stocks, flight status, and restaurants; and SoundHound Smart Answering is built to offer customer establishments custom AI-powered voice assistant.

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