SoundHound AI Target of Unusually High Options Trading (NASDAQ:SOUN)

SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN) saw some unusual options trading activity on Friday. Investors bought 158,395 call options on the stock. This represents an increase of 105% compared to the typical daily volume of 77,261 call options.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities analysts have commented on SOUN shares. HC Wainwright dropped their price target on shares of SoundHound AI from $26.00 to $20.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Monday, March 2nd. LADENBURG THALM/SH SH upgraded shares of SoundHound AI to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Zacks Research upgraded shares of SoundHound AI from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Monday, February 9th. Piper Sandler reiterated a “neutral” rating and issued a $9.00 price target (down from $11.00) on shares of SoundHound AI in a research note on Friday, February 27th. Finally, 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. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, five have assigned a Buy rating, three have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $14.93.

SoundHound AI Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ SOUN opened at $9.00 on Friday. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $7.67 and a 200 day moving average price of $9.26. SoundHound AI has a 1-year low of $5.83 and a 1-year high of $22.17. The company has a market cap of $3.89 billion, a PE ratio of -19.15 and a beta of 2.58.

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, May 7th. The company reported ($0.06) earnings per share for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.05) by ($0.01). SoundHound AI had a negative return on equity of 40.15% and a negative net margin of 91.84%.The company had revenue of $44.20 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $42.56 million. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned ($0.06) earnings per share. SoundHound AI’s revenue for the quarter was up 51.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Analysts anticipate that SoundHound AI will post -0.43 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other SoundHound AI news, SVP Majid Emami sold 31,019 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.79, for a total value of $210,619.01. Following the transaction, the senior vice president directly owned 501,826 shares in the company, valued at $3,407,398.54. This represents a 5.82% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Keyvan Mohajer sold 124,510 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, March 20th. The shares were sold at an average price of $6.79, for a total transaction of $845,422.90. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 2,073,777 shares in the company, valued at $14,080,945.83. This represents a 5.66% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 307,973 shares of company stock valued at $2,091,110 over the last three months. 8.84% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On SoundHound AI

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Danske Bank A S acquired a new stake in SoundHound AI in the third quarter valued at $26,000. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. lifted its holdings in SoundHound AI by 83.1% in the second quarter. Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Co. now owns 2,336 shares of the company’s stock valued at $25,000 after acquiring an additional 1,060 shares during the period. Dogwood Wealth Management LLC lifted its holdings in SoundHound AI by 152.1% in the fourth quarter. Dogwood Wealth Management LLC now owns 2,559 shares of the company’s stock valued at $26,000 after acquiring an additional 1,544 shares during the period. SHP Wealth Management acquired a new stake in SoundHound AI in the fourth quarter valued at $27,000. Finally, Parallel Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in SoundHound AI by 42.8% in the third quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC now owns 3,204 shares of the company’s stock valued at $52,000 after acquiring an additional 960 shares during the period. 19.28% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

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.