If you’ve been watching the SoftBank Group stock price lately, you’ve probably noticed it's a bit of a rollercoaster. Honestly, it’s always been that way. One day Masayoshi Son is the undisputed king of tech, and the next, everyone is whispering about "bubbles" and "over-leverage."
As of mid-January 2026, the stock is sitting at a weird crossroads. We just saw a 4-for-1 stock split on January 1st, which was supposed to make the shares more accessible for regular retail investors. Instead, the Tokyo-listed shares (9984.T) hit a monthly low of 4,010 yen on January 16, dropping about 15% from the peak of 4,735 yen we saw just ten days earlier. Over in the US, the ADRs (SFTBY) closed at $12.55.
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It's a classic SoftBank move: the company is actually making record money, yet the stock price is acting like there's a fire in the building.
Why the Stock is Tanking Despite Record Profits
You’d think a company reporting a record net income of 2.9 trillion yen for the first half of fiscal 2025 would be a darling of the market. But SoftBank isn't a normal company. It's essentially a giant venture capital fund wrapped in a telecom shell, and right now, the market is terrified of the "AI Bubble."
Basically, the massive gains SoftBank reported recently were driven by a roughly $14.6 billion (2.2 trillion yen) jump in the fair value of its OpenAI stake. That's "paper money." Investors are looking at that and wondering: "If the AI hype cools off, does all that value just evaporate?"
The irony is thick here. The very thing that made SoftBank a superstar in 2025—its aggressive pivot to what Son calls "Artificial Super Intelligence" (ASI)—is exactly what’s making people nervous in early 2026.
The OpenAI Factor
SoftBank has gone all-in. They finalized an additional $22.5 billion investment in OpenAI on December 31, 2025. That brings their total commitment to about $30 billion.
- The Bull Case: OpenAI becomes the operating system of the future.
- The Bear Case: Regulatory crackdowns or a slowdown in LLM scaling makes that $30 billion look like the next WeWork.
The "Physical AI" Strategy You’re Probably Missing
Most people just look at the Vision Fund, but the real story for the SoftBank Group stock price in 2026 is moving toward hardware and infrastructure. Masa Son has been saying lately that "software can be copied, but physical infrastructure creates a moat."
He’s not just talking. Look at the recent moves:
- DigitalBridge Acquisition: On December 29, 2025, SoftBank announced it's buying DigitalBridge for $4 billion. This is all about data centers and fiber.
- ABB Robotics: They dropped $5.3 billion to acquire ABB’s robotics arm.
- Project Izanagi: This is Son’s $100 billion dream to build a global AI chip powerhouse to compete with Nvidia.
This shift to "Physical AI" is a hedge. If AI software becomes a commodity, the people owning the power grids, the chips, and the robots are the ones who keep the keys to the kingdom.
Arm Holdings: The Crown Jewel or a Valuation Trap?
SoftBank still owns about 90% of Arm Holdings. In many ways, SoftBank Group's stock is just a proxy for Arm. When Arm’s valuation gets stretched—like it did in December 2025 when it dropped 40% on valuation concerns—SoftBank feels the pain.
However, the fundamentals at Arm are actually pretty scary-good. They’re seeing record royalty revenues from the Armv9 architecture. Hyperscalers like Google and Microsoft are moving to Arm-based chips in their data centers. Analysts are still projecting Arm could rise another 67% in 2026, which would provide a massive floor for SoftBank's valuation.
Understanding the Financial Safety Net
One thing that gets missed in the headlines is that SoftBank is actually in a much safer financial position than it was during the 2020-2022 era.
- Loan-to-Value (LTV): It’s at 16.5%. They want to keep it under 25% normally.
- Cash on Hand: 4.2 trillion yen.
- Bond Safety: They have enough cash to cover two years of bond redemptions.
They aren't the desperate "King of Debt" anymore. They are a "King of Debt" with a massive pile of cash and a very disciplined LTV ratio.
What Most People Get Wrong About the NAV
The most important number for SoftBank isn't the stock price—it's the Net Asset Value (NAV). As of late 2025, the proforma NAV was around 36.2 trillion yen.
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When you compare the total market cap of SoftBank Group to the value of its holdings (Arm, OpenAI, PayPay, T-Mobile shares), the stock often trades at a massive discount—sometimes 40% or 50%.
Why? Because the market applies a "conglomerate discount" and a "Masa risk premium." Investors worry that Son will take all the profits from a "sure thing" like Arm and gamble them on a moonshot that might fail.
Actionable Insights for Investors
If you're looking at the SoftBank Group stock price as a potential entry point, you need to be honest about your risk tolerance. This isn't a "buy and forget" utility stock.
- Watch the 4,000 Yen Level: For the Tokyo shares, 4,000 yen is a psychological floor. If it breaks that, we could see more technical selling.
- The Feb 12 Earnings Call: Keep an eye on the February 12, 2026, earnings report. This will be the first time we see the full impact of the OpenAI revaluation and the DigitalBridge deal on the books.
- Monitor Arm's Lock-ups: Since SoftBank owns so much of Arm, any indication that they might sell more shares to fund "Project Izanagi" could cause short-term volatility in both stocks.
Basically, if you believe AI is a long-term structural shift and not a 1999-style dot-com bubble, SoftBank is one of the few ways to get "full stack" exposure. You're getting the chips (Arm), the brains (OpenAI), and the muscle (ABB Robotics) all in one ticker. Just expect a bumpy ride.
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To stay ahead, track the "LTV" ratio in their quarterly filings rather than the daily price swings. As long as that LTV stays under 25%, the company has the "offensive" capability to survive a market downturn and buy the dip while others are panicking. Keep a close eye on the yen-to-dollar exchange rate as well, as currency fluctuations significantly impact their reported earnings given their global asset base.