SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN) Trading 14.6% Higher on Analyst Upgrade

SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN) was up 14.6% during mid-day 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. Approximately 73,277,618 shares changed hands during mid-day trading, an increase of 81% from the average daily volume of 40,527,574 shares. The stock had previously closed at $13.55.

Several other brokerages also recently issued reports on SOUN. DA Davidson cut their price objective on SoundHound AI from $13.00 to $10.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, April 14th. Wedbush raised their price target on SoundHound AI from $15.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock an “outperform” rating in a research report on Friday, August 8th. Northland Capmk upgraded SoundHound AI from a “hold” rating to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Friday, August 8th. Piper Sandler reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $12.00 price objective on shares of SoundHound AI in a research note on Monday, July 14th. Finally, Wall Street Zen cut SoundHound AI from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Saturday. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, three have assigned a hold rating, five have issued a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, SoundHound AI has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $13.36.

Insider Activity at SoundHound AI

In other news, CEO Keyvan Mohajer sold 254,376 shares of SoundHound AI stock in a transaction on Friday, June 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $9.36, for a total value of $2,380,959.36. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer owned 1,749,790 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $16,378,034.40. The trade was a 12.69% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO Michael Zagorsek sold 117,180 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on 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. The trade was a 8.01% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders have sold 913,317 shares of company stock worth $8,679,813. Company insiders own 9.17% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On SoundHound AI

Hedge funds have recently modified their holdings of the stock. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC grew its holdings in SoundHound AI by 4.0% in the second quarter. Janney Montgomery Scott LLC now owns 23,073 shares of the company’s stock valued at $248,000 after purchasing an additional 880 shares during the period. Russell Investments Group Ltd. boosted its holdings in shares of SoundHound AI by 16.4% in the 4th quarter. Russell Investments Group Ltd. now owns 6,598 shares of the company’s stock valued at $131,000 after purchasing an additional 929 shares during the last quarter. Apexium Financial LP grew its stake in shares of SoundHound AI by 2.8% during the 2nd quarter. Apexium Financial LP now owns 36,698 shares of the company’s stock valued at $394,000 after buying an additional 1,000 shares during the period. Belpointe Asset Management LLC grew its stake in shares of SoundHound AI by 9.6% during the 2nd quarter. Belpointe Asset Management LLC now owns 11,430 shares of the company’s stock valued at $123,000 after buying an additional 1,000 shares during the period. Finally, Huntington National Bank increased its holdings in shares of SoundHound AI by 48.8% during the 2nd quarter. Huntington National Bank now owns 3,050 shares of the company’s stock worth $33,000 after buying an additional 1,000 shares during the last quarter. 19.28% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

SoundHound AI Trading Up 0.5%

The firm has a market capitalization of $6.42 billion, a PE ratio of -25.37 and a beta of 2.57. The firm has a 50-day moving average of $11.00 and a two-hundred day moving average of $10.49.

SoundHound AI (NASDAQ:SOUN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, August 7th. The company reported ($0.19) EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of ($0.06) by ($0.13). The firm had revenue of $42.68 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $32.88 million. SoundHound AI had a negative return on equity of 77.38% and a negative net margin of 171.81%. The business’s revenue was up 216.3% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company earned ($0.11) earnings per share. Equities research analysts expect that SoundHound AI, Inc. will post -0.38 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

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.