SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN) Shares Down 6.8% – Should You Sell?

SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN) shares fell 6.8% on Friday . The stock traded as low as $8.33 and last traded at $8.46. 28,649,607 shares changed hands during trading, an increase of 7% from the average session volume of 26,711,791 shares. The stock had previously closed at $9.08.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research firms have commented on SOUN. Piper Sandler dropped their price objective on shares of SoundHound AI from $15.00 to $11.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 5th. Zacks Research downgraded SoundHound AI from a “hold” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Monday, January 12th. DA Davidson set a $14.00 price target on SoundHound AI in a research note on Thursday, January 8th. Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (d-)” rating on shares of SoundHound AI in a research note on Friday, January 9th. Finally, Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded SoundHound AI from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the company from $13.00 to $15.00 in a research report on Friday, December 12th. One research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have given a Buy rating, two have given a Hold rating and two have assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, SoundHound AI currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $16.07.

SoundHound AI Price Performance

The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $11.13 and a 200-day simple moving average of $13.45. The firm has a market cap of $3.55 billion, a PE ratio of -10.07 and a beta of 2.65.

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 6th. The company reported ($0.03) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.09) by $0.06. The company had revenue of $42.05 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $40.48 million. SoundHound AI had a negative net margin of 211.16% and a negative return on equity of 93.64%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 67.6% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned ($0.04) EPS. As a group, equities research analysts predict that SoundHound AI, Inc. will post -0.38 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CFO Nitesh Sharan sold 60,780 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Monday, December 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $11.28, for a total transaction of $685,598.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer owned 1,705,148 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $19,234,069.44. This represents a 3.44% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, COO Michael Zagorsek sold 73,406 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, December 22nd. The shares were sold at an average price of $11.28, for a total value of $828,019.68. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer owned 1,787,459 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $20,162,537.52. This trade represents a 3.94% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Over the last three months, insiders sold 462,265 shares of company stock worth $5,216,518. Company insiders own 9.17% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of SoundHound AI

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. grew its stake in SoundHound AI by 16.4% during the 3rd quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 43,457,569 shares of the company’s stock worth $698,798,000 after buying an additional 6,132,648 shares during the last quarter. UBS Group AG boosted 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 valued at $61,059,000 after acquiring an additional 2,676,707 shares during the period. Jump Financial LLC purchased a new position in shares of SoundHound AI during the third quarter worth approximately $21,679,000. HRT Financial LP acquired a new position in shares of SoundHound AI in the 2nd quarter valued at $11,914,000. Finally, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. raised its position in SoundHound AI by 69.8% in the 1st quarter. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. now owns 2,639,689 shares of the company’s stock valued at $21,434,000 after purchasing an additional 1,085,473 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 19.28% of the company’s stock.

SoundHound AI Company Profile

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.