Stock Market Today, March 18: SoFi Technologies Dips 1% Day After Short Report

SoFi Technologies (SOFI 1.09%), a digital banking and lending platform, closed Wednesday at $17.18, down 1.09%. The stock moved as investors weighed SoFi’s rebuttal to Muddy Waters’ short report and CEO Anthony Noto’s $500,000 insider share purchase, while monitoring ongoing regulatory and accounting scrutiny. Trading volume reached 80.7 million shares, coming in about 36% above its three-month average of 59.5 million shares.

SoFi Technologies IPO'd in 2021 and has grown 41% since going public.

How the markets moved today

The S&P 500 fell 1.37% to 6,624, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.46% to finish at 22,152. Within financial technology and online banking, LendingClub closed at $13.31, down 5.70%, and Upstart ended at $25.83, sliding 7.19%, underscoring broader weakness across fintech lenders.

What this means for investors

One day after being the subject of a short-report from short-selling investment firm Muddy Waters, SoFi fired back, stating, “The claims made in the Muddy Waters report demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of our financial statements and business. We intend to explore potential legal action against Muddy Waters for the factually inaccurate and misleading report.” Muddy Waters responded, saying they’ve been sued before and remain “undefeated.”

In what was viewed as a vote of confidence, CEO Anthony Noto purchased another $500,000 of SoFi stock yesterday, though this is a diminutive amount of shares compared to their total holdings, so investors shouldn’t overreact to this insider buying. As a SoFi shareholder, I’ll be monitoring the situation, but will just leave my shares alone for now.