B. Riley Upgrades Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST) to “Buy”

Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST) was upgraded by analysts at B. Riley from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report issued on Wednesday,Briefing.com Automated Import reports. The brokerage currently has a $105.00 price target on the stock, up from their prior price target of $49.00. B. Riley’s price target suggests a potential upside of 55.93% from the company’s previous close.

UPST has been the topic of a number of other reports. Citigroup upgraded shares of Upstart from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and upped their price target for the company from $56.00 to $87.00 in a research note on Friday, November 8th. BTIG Research upgraded shares of Upstart from a “sell” rating to a “neutral” rating in a research note on Monday, November 11th. Piper Sandler upgraded shares of Upstart from a “neutral” rating to an “overweight” rating and increased their target price for the stock from $31.00 to $85.00 in a research note on Friday, November 8th. Needham & Company LLC upgraded shares of Upstart from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $100.00 target price on the stock in a research note on Friday, December 13th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. lowered shares of Upstart from a “neutral” rating to an “underweight” rating and increased their price target for the stock from $45.00 to $57.00 in a report on Monday, December 2nd. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, five have given a hold rating and six have issued a buy rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $67.73.

Upstart Stock Down 5.1 %

UPST opened at $67.34 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $6.14 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of -34.89 and a beta of 2.25. Upstart has a twelve month low of $20.60 and a twelve month high of $88.95. The company’s 50-day moving average price is $67.49 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $54.38.

Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, February 11th. The company reported ($0.02) earnings per share for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.04) by $0.02. Upstart had a negative net margin of 30.15% and a negative return on equity of 32.57%. As a group, sell-side analysts anticipate that Upstart will post -2.18 earnings per share for the current year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, CEO Dave Girouard sold 41,667 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, November 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $65.41, for a total value of $2,725,438.47. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 61,512 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $4,023,499.92. This trade represents a 40.38 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CTO Paul Gu sold 4,019 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Thursday, December 5th. The stock was sold at an average price of $75.00, for a total transaction of $301,425.00. Following the completion of the sale, the chief technology officer now directly owns 863,065 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $64,729,875. This represents a 0.46 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 347,868 shares of company stock valued at $24,056,862 in the last quarter. Insiders own 18.06% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Large investors have recently bought and sold shares of the business. Rakuten Securities Inc. purchased a new position in Upstart during the 4th quarter valued at about $31,000. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. purchased a new position in Upstart during the 3rd quarter valued at about $35,000. Farther Finance Advisors LLC lifted its position in Upstart by 24.2% during the 4th quarter. Farther Finance Advisors LLC now owns 882 shares of the company’s stock valued at $54,000 after acquiring an additional 172 shares during the period. BNP Paribas purchased a new position in Upstart during the 3rd quarter valued at about $37,000. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. lifted its position in Upstart by 125.3% during the 3rd quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 989 shares of the company’s stock valued at $40,000 after acquiring an additional 550 shares during the period. 63.01% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Upstart Company Profile

Upstart Holdings, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, operates a cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) lending platform in the United States. Its platform includes personal loans, automotive retail and refinance loans, home equity lines of credit, and small dollar loans that connects consumer demand for loans to its to bank and credit unions.