SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN) Shares Gap Up on Better-Than-Expected Earnings

SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN) shares gapped up before the market opened on Friday following a better than expected earnings announcement. The stock had previously closed at $4.75, but opened at $5.55. SoundHound AI shares last traded at $5.59, with a volume of 36,953,233 shares trading hands.

The company reported ($0.07) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.09) by $0.02. The business had revenue of $11.59 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $10.10 million. SoundHound AI had a negative net margin of 188.57% and a negative return on equity of 1,955.68%. The business’s revenue was up 72.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned ($0.12) EPS.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently weighed in on the stock. Northland Securities reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of SoundHound AI in a research note on Wednesday, February 28th. Wedbush boosted their price target on shares of SoundHound AI from $5.00 to $9.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a report on Friday, March 1st. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH started coverage on shares of SoundHound AI in a report on Tuesday, January 30th. They set a “buy” rating and a $4.00 price target for the company. HC Wainwright upped their target price on shares of SoundHound AI from $5.00 to $7.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Monday, March 4th. Finally, DA Davidson upped their target price on shares of SoundHound AI from $7.50 to $9.50 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, March 15th. Two research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and four have issued a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, SoundHound AI currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $6.88.

Insider Buying and Selling at SoundHound AI

In other SoundHound AI news, Director Eric R. Ball sold 40,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, March 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $9.55, for a total transaction of $382,000.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 450,250 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,299,887.50. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. In related news, CEO Keyvan Mohajer sold 107,927 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, February 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $3.70, for a total value of $399,329.90. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 1,218,712 shares in the company, valued at $4,509,234.40. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director Eric R. Ball sold 40,000 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, March 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.55, for a total transaction of $382,000.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 450,250 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $4,299,887.50. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In the last three months, insiders sold 405,057 shares of company stock worth $2,587,804. 21.30% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Independent Advisor Alliance acquired a new stake in SoundHound AI in the fourth quarter valued at $28,000. IAM Advisory LLC bought a new position in shares of SoundHound AI during the fourth quarter worth about $29,000. Hexagon Capital Partners LLC bought a new position in SoundHound AI in the 1st quarter valued at about $29,000. HighPoint Advisor Group LLC acquired a new stake in SoundHound AI in the 4th quarter valued at about $37,000. Finally, DecisionPoint Financial LLC acquired a new stake in SoundHound AI in the 1st quarter valued at about $40,000. 19.28% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

SoundHound AI Stock Up 15.6 %

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 6.03, a quick ratio of 4.69 and a current ratio of 4.69. The company has a market capitalization of $1.70 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -14.31 and a beta of 2.87. The stock’s fifty day simple moving average is $5.41 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $3.39.

About SoundHound AI

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.