저자: GeorgeTiller · 외국인
요약 보기
엔비디아가 SoundHound(SOUN) 지분을 전량 매도한 것을 계기로, 과거 급등분이 밸류에이션 재조정되는 과정이라고 설명. 2024년 매출 약 6,700만달러, 손실 약 1.1억달러, 2025년 흑자 전망 없음, 매출 대비 PS 약 85배로 고평가. 엔비디아 자산 축소를 AI 생태계 신뢰 약화 신호로 해석하며 엔비디아 고점 가능성도 언급. 숏 포지션이 발행주식의 약 30%라 숏셀러 행동을 정당하다고 평가.
다듬은 글
Welcome back to NextG Investing. Time for the "Under 30" column. Today we discuss Soundhound AI. And with us, as always, is George Tiller, senior market correspondent for the Schwab network . George, I'm sure that at one time this action was definitely underestimated. But it was one of those names that just added "AI" to the end, it got a little attention, and then Nvidia actually pulled it out of obscurity, announced a big investment, and now they've abruptly taken it away .
How does this affect the history of a company whose shares rose from less than a dollar in 2023 to almost $25 a share late last year? Well, of course, the stock price history is down due to the sale of the stake Nvidia had in Soundhound. If you look at the context of the news, they announced that they owned 1.7 million shares valued at $8 million.
This was based on their September 13F report . So if you look at Soundhound's market cap, based on yesterday's close , it was around $5.5 billion . It's obviously down about 30%, give or take a percentage or two, given today's price action. Essentially, Nvidia is simply recording a profit on its investment in this company.
Moreover, if you look at other aspects of Nvidia's investments, they date back to 2017. So this is, in essence, an asset divestiture. But if you look at the sales volume, it wasn't that significant. However, we see a reaction to Soundhound because Nvidia is a big name. And when you have a famous investor, a famous product, a famous stock , all tied to your business, and Soundhound is tied to Nvidia because it's voice AI technology, people are going to attack and sell your stock.
And that is exactly what is happening today. If you look at the rationale, you might assume that the jump from less than a dollar to $20+ was quite excessive, given Soundhound's growth , profits, and sales . The company is now growing. If you look at last year, the company generated about $67 million in revenue.
Um, but if you look at the losses the company incurred last year, they were almost twice as big as its sales. That's about $111 million in losses. So , you know, usually when we talk about loss-making companies, they tend to improve over time, if there are strong trends, if the losses are at least less than the revenue.
With Sound last year, things were different. So price dynamics have truly become disconnected from financial indicators. Now moving on, let's briefly talk about assessment. You know, taking into account sales forecasts for next year, the stock is trading at a multiple of about 85 to next year's sales.
This is a fairly high figure. But, if you look at SoundHound's profitability profile, they don't expect to make any profit in 2025. And so, moving on to what was considered a positive catalyst, namely Nvidia's stake in SoundHound, the situation is changing and the company's financial fundamentals are starting to become a reality.
That's why we're seeing a decline in stock prices. This doesn't mean it's all over for SoundHound. It simply means that the assessment is now becoming more in line with reality, and that is essentially what we are seeing today. So, George, I read about Nvidia's total asset value falling to about 304 million from 433 million just in the previous quarter.
So could it be a negative reflection of Nvidia's actions that they are now cutting back on some of their assets? They come from the capital of some of these companies. I know they are reinvesting in other areas, but the overall cost is decreasing. So could this be, perhaps, some kind of warning signal from Nvidia?
Yes. Well, that's a valid observation. I think if you look at Nvidia , they almost closed the gap after the DeepSeek news. It is at around $141. Again, almost. Not yet, but if Nvidia doesn't beat revenue expectations and confirm or even raise forecasts, we may have at least seen a near-term peak for Nvidia.
And maybe these are other clues. You know , selling Nvidia assets and other investments like SoundHound means raising cash, and maybe they don't have as much confidence in AI ecosystems for companies like SoundHound in the future. So, this could be an indicator of Nvidia's confidence in the ecosystems around artificial intelligence.
I can't say for sure, but nonetheless , I believe that Soundhound, at least from a value perspective, has far outpaced the price movement and we are simply seeing a rebalancing or reorientation of these names. And, by the way, even as Soundhound shares continued to rise, short sellers became very aggressive, with short positions accounting for about 30% of the total number of shares outstanding.
So I think the actions of the short sellers are justified at least today . Yes. And the risk we talked about for some of these companies is just becoming a reality. Thank you, George Tillis, as always, for joining us.
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