SoFi Stock Is Down 44% This Year — So Why Are Analysts Still Calling It a Buy?

What transpired with SoFi Technologies on March 27th is almost ridiculous. The company announced partnerships with a major financial services and insurance group, a global bank, and one of the top five private asset managers in the world, totaling more than $3.6 billion in new funding agreements for personal loans. The agreements were precisely the type of institutional validation that SoFi’s management had been advocating for years. The revenue was increasing. The number of loan originations reached a record high. Mizuho analysts set a price target of $38 for the stock. Nevertheless, SoFi shares had dropped more than 4% to $15.23 by the end of Friday afternoon trading.

A single press release cannot resolve the complexity of the story that that figure conveys.

Like many Silicon Valley businesses, SoFi started out as an ingenious solution to a particular issue. It was founded in 2011 by Stanford business school students who wanted to use alumni capital as a source of funding to assist other Stanford students in refinancing their student loans at reduced rates.

It was a clever concept. Community-driven, low-risk, and simple to describe. However, Anthony Noto, the former COO of Twitter and NFL CFO who became CEO in 2018, had much bigger goals. Under his leadership, SoFi obtained a bank charter, developed a comprehensive range of financial products, including personal loans, mortgages, investment accounts, credit cards, and insurance, and rethought itself as a financial platform rather than a lender, the kind of one-stop shop that would eliminate the need for clients to ever visit a traditional bank branch. It’s a daring idea. The market’s perception of it is a completely different story.

The current state of SoFi stock in 2026 is indicative of a well-known tension in the fintech industry: investor anxiety that cannot be fully allayed by the numbers alone, despite strong underlying numbers. The company reported slightly over $1 billion in revenue through the fourth quarter of 2025, a 40% increase from the previous year. Revenue from financial services increased by 78% to $456.7 million. An all-time high of $10.5 billion was reached in total loan originations. These are not the figures of a troubled business. Nevertheless, the stock has dropped by about 44% so far this year, a drop severe enough to cause even the most patient long-term investor to pause.

A portion of that decrease can be traced back to March 17th, when Muddy Waters, a well-known short-selling company that targets businesses it believes are falsifying their financial statements, released a report claiming SoFi had at least $312 million in unrecorded debt and raising concerns about its loan accounting procedures. That day alone, the stock fell as much as 6.5%. SoFi responded sharply, calling the report “factually inaccurate and misleading” and threatening legal action—the strongest denial a publicly traded company can make. Observing from the sidelines, investors weren’t totally comforted. Even disputed short-seller reports have the ability to cast a shadow of doubt over a stock that persists even after official rebuttals.

In part, that cloud prompted the announcement of $3.6 billion loan partnerships the following week. Instead of keeping all of the loans on its own balance sheet, SoFi earns fees by originating or referring loans to institutional partners under what Noto refers to as a “capital-light, fee-based” model. The reasoning makes sense: less exposure to the credit cycle, more recurring income, and less capital at risk. These agreements are truly significant for a company that has been attempting to demonstrate that it is a platform business rather than a balance sheet-heavy lender. According to Dan Dolev of Mizuho, the agreements “help alleviate concerns” regarding SoFi’s performance on personal loans. Better access to funding is a definite benefit, according to Goldman Sachs. They may both be correct, and the market just needs more time to come to terms with it.

Observing SoFi’s stock chart over the past year gives the impression that the company is torn between two narratives that alternately succeed. Strong revenue growth, increasing profitability, an enhanced business mix, and a clean banking platform that millennials genuinely use are all components of the bull case. 14.6% is the trailing 12-month operating margin. Over the previous two years, earnings per share increased by 148% annually, surpassing even remarkable revenue growth. According to a community narrative that is circulating among retail investors on investment forums, SoFi is “the apex aggregator” of the contemporary financial system and has a fair value of approximately $22.98. The underlying conviction is not unfounded, but the language is breathless.

Meanwhile, the bear case continues to find ammunition. Regardless of what the courts ultimately decide, the Muddy Waters report raised issues that the court of market opinion has yet to fully address. Any lender, even one that is making a concerted effort to appear less like a traditional lender, faces additional uncertainty due to the larger macroenvironment, which includes consumer credit stress that is subtly growing in some areas of the economy. Additionally, the stock’s 52-week high of $32.73 now seems like a faraway memory, sitting almost $17 above current share prices and serving as a reminder to investors that this stock has a history of making significant swings in both directions.

It’s still unclear if the market is pricing in something more structural or if SoFi is experiencing a brief decline due to sentiment and short-seller noise. However, the business is expanding, making money, and entering into billion-dollar agreements with significant institutional partners. Even if the stock price is still unconvinced, that much is undeniable.