Wall Street Zen Upgrades Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST) to “Hold”

Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST) was upgraded by stock analysts at Wall Street Zen from a “sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a report released on Saturday.

UPST has been the subject of a number of other reports. Citigroup dropped their target price on shares of Upstart from $80.00 to $61.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, July 22nd. Truist Financial set a $40.00 price objective on Upstart in a report on Wednesday, May 6th. BTIG Research reissued a “buy” rating and set a $43.00 price objective on shares of Upstart in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. B. Riley Financial decreased their price objective on shares of Upstart from $66.00 to $54.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Finally, Mizuho set a $45.00 target price on shares of Upstart in a research note on Friday, May 8th. Eight equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, six have assigned a Hold rating and two have issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $44.40.

Upstart Price Performance

Shares of UPST stock opened at $31.09 on Friday. Upstart has a 1 year low of $23.97 and a 1 year high of $76.95. The stock has a market capitalization of $3.03 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 63.45, a PEG ratio of 0.85 and a beta of 2.29. The company’s fifty day simple moving average is $31.19 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $31.20.

Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The company reported $0.16 EPS for the quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $0.18 by ($0.02). The firm had revenue of $364.71 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $354.74 million. Upstart had a net margin of 4.84% and a return on equity of 7.13%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 41.9% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the business earned $0.36 earnings per share. Equities research analysts anticipate that Upstart will post 0.92 EPS for the current year.

Insider Activity

In other news, insider Natalia Mirgorodskaya sold 974 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, May 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $28.99, for a total transaction of $28,236.26. Following the transaction, the insider directly owned 37,374 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,083,472.26. This represents a 2.54% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Sanjay Datta sold 15,000 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, June 9th. The stock was sold at an average price of $30.41, for a total value of $456,150.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 313,556 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $9,535,237.96. This represents a 4.57% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 33,346 shares of company stock valued at $991,672. Company insiders own 17.29% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Trading of Upstart

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

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.