SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ:SOFI), the financial technology company, is still falling. I wrote about this last month when it was at $14.85. But since then, SOFI stock has tumbled again, and by mid-day Jan. 27, 2022, it was down to $11.56 per share.
That represents another 22% drop, and in fact, since the end of the year SOFI stock is actually down $4.25 from $15.81 as of Dec. 31. This means it was down 26.9% year-to-date (YTD) when it hit that price. This drop really seems unsustainable, especially since its underlying value is significantly higher.
So what is going on here? Let’s look into SoFi Technologies’ situation more closely.
Where Things Stand With SoFi
I wrote last month that SOFI stock is worth at least $19 per share based on analysts’ base target prices. Moreover, SoFi reported stellar earnings on Nov. 10, with the release of its third-quarter financial results.
In addition, SoFi now has 2.9 million members, up 96% year-over-year. This gives it a huge base to whom it can sell high numbers of financial products.
SoFi provided guidance of $272 million to $282 million for Q4. This is significantly higher than last year but represents only slightly higher than its Q3 revenue of $277.19 million on a non-GAAP basis.
That could be one reason why the stock has been so weak lately. Analysts and investors typically want to see good quarterly consecutive top-line growth. This implies that going forward its year-over-year growth will not decelerate, which is what seems to be happening here.
Where Analysts Stand on SoFi Stock
Nevertheless, analysts’ projections for the stock still seem quite ebullient. For example, Seeking Alpha now shows that the average of 12 analysts is now $20.23. This is higher than the $19 per share price target last month.
So, here we have a situation where analysts are turning more positive on the stock but it keeps falling. I don’t see that continuing for much longer.
In fact, TipRanks.com reports that 10 analysts who have written on the stock in the last 3 months have an average target price of $20.30. This represents an upside of over 75.3% over today’s price.
One of the problems with SoFi’s financials is that so far it is not EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortization) profitable and cash flow positive. That could also be a reason why the stock has been so weak lately.
In fact, some investors might want to wait for the company to get to this point before investing in SOFI stock. On the other hand, analysts now project the company to make $1.46 billion in revenue in 2022. This implies a 46% potential upside from estimates of 2021 revenue by analysts.
Since SoFi has a $10.3 billion market cap now, this implies that the price-to-sales (P/S) multiple for 2022 is just 7.1 times. That does not seem very expensive. For example, Morningstar.com reports that the average P/S multiple during 2021 was 14.6 times.
What to Do With SoFi Stock
Recently, analysts have been taking note of the stock’s weakness and its higher underlying value. On Jan. 21, Wedbush initiated coverage on SOFI stock with an “outperform” rating and a $20 price target.
The analyst’s thesis was based on a five-year revenue compound annual growth rate of 28% through 2026. In addition, the analyst pointed out that the company’s clients will have an average FICO score of 750, which will allow it to have high profits and low write-off expenses.
In addition, SoFi recently received a bank charter, which also allows it to have lower funding expenses. It also gives them a competitive advantage over some of their peers.
As a result, investors might want to piggyback on this analyst’s recommendation and average down into the stock. This will allow them to significantly lower their average costs, which is good for long-term profits for the long-term investor.
On the date of publication, Mark R. Hake did not hold any position (either directly or indirectly) in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
Mark Hake writes about personal finance on mrhake.medium.com and Newsbreak.com and runs the Total Yield Value Guide which you can review here.