Veteran trader reboots SoFi stock price target after earnings | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

If you played college football 30-odd years ago, Anthony Noto was probably one of the last men you wanted to see heading your way.

And if he hit you hard enough, he was probably was the last man you saw. At least for a little while.

While at West Point, Noto was a star linebacker on the U.S. military academy’s football team and he earned All East Linebacker and Academic All-American titles and received the Toyota Leadership Award in the 1990 Army-Navy Game.

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He led the team with 129 tackles and still ranks in the top 15 all-time Army single season tackles, and ranked third in the record books for caused fumbles in a season—including a single game high of 24 tackles in a win against Vanderbilt.

After football, Noto went on to tackle the business world, a career path that included stints at Goldman Sachs, the National Football League and Twitter—before Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk X’ed it up.

Noto is now the CEO of SoFi Technologies (SOFI) , which beat Wall Street’s second-quarter earnings forecasts and raised its full year revenue outlook.

SoFi Technologies CEO Anthony Noto said the company is ‘just scratching the surface of the tremendous opportunities for growth.’

Sean M&period; Haffey/Getty Images

Veteran trader praises SoFi CEO

“Our success in the second quarter is clear validation of our strategy and execution,” the fintech’s chief executive said during the company’s earnings call.

“And, as you can see, we are just scratching the surface of the tremendous opportunities for growth that exist across each of our products and segments.”

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An incredible resume, to be sure, but TheStreet Pro’s Stephen Guilfoyle knew Noto was exceptional way back when he saw him back on the gridiron.

“I told you this guy was good years ago,” he wrote, quoting himself in his latest column. “I saw him play college ball for Army. He made literally every tackle.”

SoFi’s stock has been storming down the field for quite a while with shares up nearly 213% from a year ago. The stock was climbing 9% at last check.

Looking at the results, the San Francisco-based SoFi earned 8 cents with net adjusted revenue up 44% to $858 million.

“These numbers all easily beat expectations, with EPS comparing quite nicely to $0.01 for the year-ago period, while reflecting year-over-year revenue growth of 43% (GAAP) or 44% (adjusted),” Guilfoyle said, describing SoFi as a “longtime Sarge-fave and core ‘Stocks Under $10’ holding.

William Blair, which kept an outperform rating on the stock, said Wall Street is only starting to appreciate the extent and speed of the company’s “disruptive” digital banking offerings.

The firm said that it believes traditional banks will “rapidly” lose market share to SoFi as the company expands its savings, spending, lending, investing, and advice offerings

“We feel great about the business,” Noto told analysts. “It’s operating in all cylinders. The results show that. Our outlook shows that for 2025. I think our biggest challenge beyond 2025 quite frankly is deciding what not to do.”

SoFi CEO: excited about return to crypto

For the full year, SoFi now expects to generate adjusted net revenue of about $3.375 billion, Guilfoyle said, up from its prior guidance of $3.235 billion to $3.31 billion “and well above the $3.29 billion that Wall Street had in mind.”

“SoFi made waves in June when the firm announced that it would return to the world of cryptocurrency, reversing a decision to exit that market in 2023,” he noted.

Noto told analysts that “we are at an unprecedented point in time with two technology supercycles taking place.”

“We are excited to once again be able to provide members with the ability to buy, sell and hold a selection of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum,” he said.

“In a recent survey of our members who invest in crypto, we found that 60% would prefer to work with a nationally licensed bank like SoFi over their current primary crypto exchange.”

In addition, Noto said SoFi is also making use of artificial intelligence.

“We’re implementing and testing AI applications across our business from enhancing back office processes like dispute resolution and filing suspicious activity reports to improving how we interact with our members to help them get their money right and we brought on teams of engineers to drive these efforts forward,” he said.

In reviewing SoFi’s stock chart, Guilfoyle said relative strength remains quite robust but has come out of a technically overbought condition.

“Last week’s high of $22.74 now becomes the pivot,” he said referring to the price level calculated from the previous trading day’s high, low, and closing prices.

Guilfoyle raise his price target for SoFi Technologies to $29 from $26.

“I use dollars and cents for low-priced stocks,” he said. “SoFi is no longer a low-priced stock; hence we just use dollars, making $23 the new pivot for me. Already the high price target price on Wall Street, we are increasing our target further this morning.”