What Happened?
Shares of voice AI technology company SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) jumped 7.6% in the morning session after strong results from chipmaker Nvidia, eased lingering concerns about a potential bubble in the artificial intelligence sector.
The tech giant delivered another blockbuster earnings report, with sales, profits, and guidance exceeding Wall Street expectations. CEO Jensen Huang let the data do the talking as he acknowledged the growing sentiment about an AI bubble, while affirming that sales for Nvidia's current-generation GPU, called Blackwell (mostly used for AI applications), are "off the charts."
A stronger-than-expected September jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reinforced this bullish sentiment. Nonfarm payrolls rose by 119,000, easily surpassing the consensus estimates of 50,000. While the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4% and wage growth slowed slightly, the data suggest the U.S. economy remains on a firm footing. While this resilience made some investors unsure of the Fed's December rate decision, the market welcomed the news, rallying on the strength of a solid economy and a booming tech sector.
After the initial pop the shares cooled down to $11.90, up 2.5% from previous close.
Is now the time to buy SoundHound AI? Access our full analysis report here.
What Is The Market Telling Us
SoundHound AI’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 91 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 7 days ago when the stock dropped 7.7% on the news that investors showed signs of fatigue with the AI-led rally, rotating out of high-valuation growth names.
After a fantastic run, many of the high-flying AI and technology stocks saw investors take profits: selling shares to lock in their gains. This is often called a "market rotation." Money is moving out of the red-hot tech sector (which some worry has become too expensive) and into other parts of the market that investors may currently deem more stable or reasonably-priced. There's a secondary reason for the cautious mood: The long government shutdown came to an end. Though it's typically interpreted as good news, it also means a flood of delayed economic reports will be released. For weeks, investors were "flying blind" without key updates on the economy's health, like inflation data and the jobs report. In typical "sell the news" fashion, investors may also be taking profits and selling in anticipation that the new data would potentially give the Federal Reserve reasons to slow or even pause future rate cuts.
SoundHound AI is down 41% since the beginning of the year, and at $11.90 per share, it is trading 50.9% below its 52-week high of $24.23 from December 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of SoundHound AI’s shares at the IPO in April 2022 would now be looking at an investment worth $1,586.
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