Why SoFi Technologies Stock Slipped Last Month

Shares of SoFi Technologies (NASDAQ: SOFI) fell 10.6% in March, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. The digital banking platform faced some heat when a prominent short seller published a report making severe allegations against SoFi's accounting practices.

SoFi stock has been slipping for a while now, down 50% from its October 2025 highs. Here's why the stock slipped again in March of 2026, and whether investors should buy the stock right now.

A short report targeting SoFi's accounting

Muddy Waters Research is a short-selling firm that has a history of publicly targeting hot stocks with scandalous allegations. In March, it decided to release its next target: SoFi. The firm said it was short SoFi and that it was using financial engineering to prop up its earnings to make them look stronger than they actually are.

Specifically, the short-selling firm believes that SoFi's actual net charge-off rate (i.e., loans that are not expected to pay SoFi back) is 6.1% vs. its reported level of 2.89%. Next, it alleges that SoFi is booking loans as fee income, thereby disguising debt that should be on the balance sheet, while simultaneously inflating its loan fair value by using a discount rate that is too high relative to what the financial markets would set.

SoFi, of course, denies all these claims. Personal loans are a huge part of its business, with the company originating $27.5 billion in 2025 alone. If the performance of these loans is significantly worse than what SoFi is reporting, that could put the company in big trouble, not just with its own financial statements, but with market regulators.

Image source: Getty Images.

Time to buy SoFi?

SoFi has been growing strongly in recent years. Total members who use a SoFi product is 13.6 million, and growth is 35% year-over-year at the end of 2025. It is adding billions of deposits to its bank balance sheet, slowly taking share from the big banks that still hold trillions on their balance sheets. This gives it a long runway to keep stealing market share from here.

The problem with any fast-growing lender is the quality of the loans it originates and sells to the market. SoFi has just over $10 billion in equity on its balance sheet. If its loan business is performing worse than it is currently telling the market, it may have to write down a significant portion of its book value in future years.

Individual investors may have a personal opinion on SoFi's management, but the problem with analyzing this business is that we do not know today if Muddy Waters is right with this short report. For this reason, investors should avoid buying SoFi stock today.

Brett Schafer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.