Upstart Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:UPST) Given Average Rating of “Hold” by Analysts

Shares of Upstart Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:UPST) have received an average rating of “Hold” from the seventeen brokerages that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Three equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating and seven have issued a buy rating on the company. The average 12-month price objective among analysts that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $44.7333.

UPST has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. Mizuho set a $45.00 price objective on shares of Upstart in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Needham & Company LLC reaffirmed a “buy” rating and issued a $37.00 price objective on shares of Upstart in a research note on Monday. Truist Financial set a $40.00 price objective on shares of Upstart in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. Jefferies Financial Group reaffirmed a “hold” rating and issued a $30.00 price objective on shares of Upstart in a research note on Tuesday, June 9th. Finally, Morgan Stanley set a $35.00 price objective on shares of Upstart in a research note on Thursday, May 7th.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CEO Paul Gu acquired 50,000 shares of Upstart stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, May 13th. The shares were bought at an average cost of $27.50 per share, with a total value of $1,375,000.00. Following the purchase, the chief executive officer owned 70,000 shares in the company, valued at $1,925,000. This trade represents a 250.00% increase in their position. The purchase was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CFO Andrea Blankmeyer sold 7,044 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, May 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $29.63, for a total transaction of $208,713.72. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 162,383 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,811,408.29. This represents a 4.16% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 33,346 shares of company stock worth $991,672. Corporate insiders own 17.29% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Upstart

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. raised its holdings in shares of Upstart by 11.9% during the fourth quarter. Jericho Capital Asset Management L.P. now owns 5,011,809 shares of the company’s stock valued at $219,166,000 after purchasing an additional 531,000 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley raised its holdings in shares of Upstart by 154.6% during the fourth quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 4,206,615 shares of the company’s stock valued at $183,955,000 after purchasing an additional 2,554,591 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Upstart by 1.3% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 2,068,515 shares of the company’s stock valued at $90,469,000 after purchasing an additional 26,734 shares during the period. Halter Ferguson Financial Inc. raised its holdings in shares of Upstart by 253.3% during the first quarter. Halter Ferguson Financial Inc. now owns 1,467,360 shares of the company’s stock valued at $37,638,000 after purchasing an additional 1,052,039 shares during the period. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new position in shares of Upstart during the fourth quarter valued at about $49,915,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 63.01% of the company’s stock.

Upstart Price Performance

UPST opened at $32.36 on Tuesday. Upstart has a fifty-two week low of $23.97 and a fifty-two week high of $87.30. The firm has a market capitalization of $3.10 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 85.16, a PEG ratio of 0.80 and a beta of 2.26. The company’s 50 day moving average price is $30.42 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $35.53.

Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST) last posted its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The company reported ($0.07) earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.39 by ($0.46). Upstart had a return on equity of 5.63% and a net margin of 4.34%.The business had revenue of $308.21 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $301.30 million. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $0.30 earnings per share. The company’s revenue was up 44.3% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, equities research analysts predict that Upstart will post 0.92 EPS for the current year.

Upstart announced that its board has approved a share buyback plan on Thursday, February 19th that permits the company to repurchase $100.00 million in outstanding shares. This repurchase authorization permits the company to repurchase up to 3.2% of its shares through open market purchases. Shares repurchase plans are generally an indication that the company’s board believes its stock is undervalued.

About Upstart

Upstart Holdings, Inc operates a cloud-based lending marketplace that leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to assess borrower creditworthiness. The company partners with banks and credit unions, providing its proprietary AI models and underwriting platform to facilitate consumer credit products. By focusing on non‐traditional data points—such as education, employment history and other real‐time indicators—Upstart seeks to improve approval rates and lower loss rates compared with conventional credit scoring methods.

Upstart’s core offering centers on unsecured personal loans, which borrowers can use for purposes such as debt consolidation, home improvements or major purchases.