SoundHound earnings, softening travel demand: Asking for a Trend

On today’s episode of Asking for a Trend, Host Josh Lipton breaks down some of the biggest themes and stories that dominated the trading day.

Expedia Group (EXPE) CEO Ariane Gorin warned of softening travel demands in the travel booking site’s latest earnings. Furthermore, Disney (DIS) CFO Hugh Johnston told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday that consumers are beginning to “watch their pennies” after the multinational entertainment company indicated consumer headwinds in its theme park division. Bloomberg Intelligence senior credit analyst Jody Lurie says, “We were surprised when we ran our survey of travel that the consumer was actually very much planning on spending on travel.” She continues, “Even if they were pulling back on goods, they were still spending on travel, they were still spending on leisure. They wanted to go and do, but they were showing signs of selectivity.”

Yahoo Finance markets reporter Josh Schafer breaks down his key takeaways from the trading day as US equities (^GSPC, ^DJI, ^IXIC) bounced back in Thursday’s session and the S&P 500 jumped 2.3%, its biggest increase since November 2022.

SoundHound AI (SOUN) posted second quarter earnings after the market close on Thursday, topping revenue expectations with $13.5 million versus the expected $13.1 million, an increase of 54% year-over-year. SoundHound AI Co-Founder & CEO Keyvan Mohajer discusses the recent purchase of another AI-based company: “We bought an amazing company. We announced it this morning. It’s called Amelia, they specialize in conversational AI for customer service…And they are in different verticals that we wanted to go after. That’s a big part of our business, it’s a big part of our growth”. He adds, “We are now able to go into verticals that we wanted to go to, and that path is now accelerated. Now we were in restaurants, we were supporting smaller businesses, but now we are in healthcare. We are in financial services, insurance, hospitality and retail.”

Wall Street is getting mixed signals from the labor market as the unemployment rate signals a recession while initial jobless claims suggest the contrary. Market Domination co-host Julie Hyman breaks down the historical comparisons between recessions and these data points, and what it could signal about the future of the US economy.

Finally, Asking for a Trend host Josh Lipton breaks down some of the names moving the most in after-hours trading, from Sweetgreen (SG) to Paramount (PARA, PARAA).

This post was written by Melanie Riehl