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SoundHound trading explodes as retail favorite rises

It was the second-most-active stock on Thursday.

Activity in SoundHound AI, a small-cap voice AI company that’s become of a favorite for some retail traders this year, is flaring up again, as it rose to become the second-most-traded asset in the markets Thursday, behind market-cap behemoth Nvidia. (Though, given the size of Nvidia, the value of its trading dwarfed SoundHound.)

It’s hard to say exactly what lit a fire under SoundHound traders. The company did announce another deal to provide voice-interaction AI software to regional restaurant chain Torchy’s Tacos and its 130 locations, but that hardly seems enough to justify a surge in market value of more than $1 billion on Thursday alone.

After all, the company continues to lose money, as we saw in its most recent earnings results. Its sales are growing, but the stock is trading at more than 70x sales over the last year, which is a remarkably high level. That either means the market is predicting explosive sales growth over the coming years, or traders are just way too excited about the stock. Time will tell.

But as we’ve said, there’s a lot of excitement-slash-euphoria at play in the markets broadly at the moment, with bullish sentiment clearly running rampant.

Sherwood reached out to SoundHound AI to see if they had anything to add regarding the upsurge. They sent over a prepared statement from Chief Executive Keyvan Mohajer:

“This year has been pivotal for SoundHound AI, with a number of incredible new partners and customers added to our expanding roster. Conversational and agentic AI are emerging as a massive opportunity from the generative AI disruption, and we are excited to be entering 2025 with strength and momentum.”

The stock is up again on Friday, pushing its market value above $5 billion for the first time. The shares are up more than 50% this week.

Oh, and if you’re interested in a deeper discussion of the company, check out our Q&A with SoundHound’s CEO.

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Opendoor surges on bullish options bets as traders look to potential real estate tokenization

Opendoor Technologies is surging on Friday amid bullish options bets and social media posts referencing unconfirmed rumors about the company.

The stock moved higher in the premarket session after the soft inflation report boosted stocks and briefly pushed long-term bond yields lower (positive for a real estate company). But the real gains came after the opening bell rang and options demand picked up.

As of 12:11 p.m. ET, roughly 664,000 call options have changed hands versus a 10-day average of about 364,000 for a full session.

What seems to be galvanizing members of the “$OPEN Army” is the potential for the company to pursue the tokenization of real-world assets, with Robinhood often bandied about as a potential partner in this endeavor.

(Robinhood Markets Inc. is the parent company of Sherwood Media, an independently operated media company subject to certain legal and regulatory restrictions.)

Opendoor bulls have often pointed to signs that Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev appears to be fond of the company, from what appeared on-screen during a demo of a social trading feature at HOOD’s conference in Las Vegas in September to offering support to Opendoor CEO Kaz Nejatian in setting up an opportunity for retail shareholders to ask questions during the online real estate company’s next earnings call.

Opendoor is currently in a quiet period ahead of earnings, which restricts what type of announcements a company can make.

The call options seeing the most demand expire this Friday with strike prices of $8, $8.50, and $9.

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Beyond Meat gains amid slightly better-than-expected Q3 sales, positive commentary on legal issues

Shares of Beyond Meat built on their premarket gains after the plant-based meat seller reported preliminary Q3 sales a bit ahead of Wall Street’s expectations, before paring this advance after the market opened.

For the three months ended September 27, management said net revenue would be approximately $70 million. That’s in line with their guidance range of $68 million to $73 million, but Wall Street was expecting sales to skew toward the lower end of that range, at $68.7 million.

However, its anticipated gross margin of 10% to 11% is lower than analysts had been expecting (13.8%). That’s still the case even adjusting for expenses related to its downsizing of operations in China, which would have left margins around 12% to 13%, per Beyond.

Perhaps more importantly, the company provided positive commentary regarding arbitration discussions with a former co-manufacturer that appear to bring it closer to a resolution while limiting potential damages:

“As previously disclosed, in March 2024, a former co-manufacturer brought an action against the Company in a confidential arbitration proceeding claiming that the Company inappropriately terminated its agreement with the co-manufacturer and claimed damages of at least $73.0 million. On September 15, 2025, the arbitrator issued an interim award (the ‘Interim Award’) and found that the Company had a valid basis to terminate the agreement with the Manufacturer. The details of the Interim Award are confidential, and a final arbitration award has not been issued. Additional proceedings will be held to determine the award of attorneys’ fees, prejudgment interest and costs, if any, before a final arbitration award will be issued. On September 25, 2025, the Manufacturer filed a request with the arbitrator to re-open the arbitration hearing. On September 29, 2025, the Company opposed this request. On October 20, 2025, the arbitrator denied the Manufacturer’s request.”

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