SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN) Stock Price Up 7.7% – Here’s Why

SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN)’s stock price rose 7.7% during mid-day trading on Thursday . The stock traded as high as $6.19 and last traded at $6.14. Approximately 26,536,704 shares changed hands during trading, a decline of 6% from the average session volume of 28,348,666 shares. The stock had previously closed at $5.70.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

SOUN has been the topic of a number of recent research reports. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH upgraded SoundHound AI to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. DA Davidson restated a “buy” rating and set a $14.00 target price on shares of SoundHound AI in a research report on Wednesday, April 22nd. Finally, Weiss Ratings reaffirmed a “sell (e+)” rating on shares of SoundHound AI in a research note on Monday, June 15th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have issued a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $14.93.

SoundHound AI Price Performance

The firm has a market capitalization of $2.65 billion, a P/E ratio of -13.04 and a beta of 2.62. The stock’s 50 day moving average is $6.95 and its two-hundred day moving average is $7.76.

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported ($0.06) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.05) by ($0.01). The business had revenue of $44.20 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $42.56 million. SoundHound AI had a negative net margin of 91.84% and a negative return on equity of 40.15%. SoundHound AI’s revenue was up 51.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the business posted ($0.06) earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that SoundHound AI, Inc. will post -0.45 EPS for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other SoundHound AI news, COO Michael Zagorsek sold 64,994 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, June 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.46, for a total value of $484,855.24. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer owned 1,669,497 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $12,454,447.62. This represents a 3.75% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, insider James Ming Hom sold 28,843 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, June 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.46, for a total transaction of $215,168.78. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 743,521 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,546,666.66. This trade represents a 3.73% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders have sold a total of 268,022 shares of company stock valued at $1,999,444 in the last ninety days. 8.84% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On SoundHound AI

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in SoundHound AI by 4.4% during the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 45,367,437 shares of the company’s stock worth $452,313,000 after buying an additional 1,909,868 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in SoundHound AI by 3.1% in the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,180,321 shares of the company’s stock valued at $91,543,000 after acquiring an additional 273,097 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley increased its holdings in shares of SoundHound AI by 48.1% in the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 8,987,522 shares of the company’s stock worth $89,606,000 after acquiring an additional 2,917,280 shares in the last quarter. State Street Corp increased its holdings in shares of SoundHound AI by 0.9% in the fourth quarter. State Street Corp now owns 8,691,235 shares of the company’s stock worth $86,652,000 after acquiring an additional 80,908 shares in the last quarter. Finally, UBS Group AG raised its position in shares of SoundHound AI by 77.6% during the fourth quarter. UBS Group AG now owns 6,124,283 shares of the company’s stock worth $61,059,000 after purchasing an additional 2,676,707 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds 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.