What Investors Should Know About Upstart Holdings, Inc.

By Chris Stiles • Friday, September 02 16:40 • Permanent Link

Tumbling to a price of $24.73 during today's afternoon trading session, shares of Upstart Holdings, Inc. are now -6.4% below their average target price of $26.42. Does this mean the stock will reverse course? Analysts are giving UPST an average rating of hold and target prices ranging from $14 to $38 dollars per share, which seems to indicate that analysts are slpit on the stock.

With a short interest of 37.2%, we can infer that the market sentiment on Upstart Holdings, Inc. is negative. Each short position represents an investor's expectation and hope that the stock's price will reverse its present course and start falling.

Short selling involves borrowing shares and then selling them at current market prices. In the successful version of the strategy, the shares are purchased at a lower price at some time in the future. The investor then returns the shares to the lender, and keeps the profit made on the sell/buy transaction.

We can make inferences about the market sentiment surrounding Upstart Holdings, Inc. by analyzing its rate of institutional ownership. If institutions such as hedge funds and pension funds are the primary shareholders of a corporation, it most likely means that its shares are a good investment according to those institutions' analysts.

At 47.0%, the rate of institutional ownership is average, indicating that a sufficient number of institutions have concluded that it is a stable investment. Beware, however, that the rate of institutional ownership could also indicate an ongoing proxy battle or takeover attempt -- so you should also periodically check the news about a stock whose institutional ownership you are tracking.

Analyst coverage, short ratio, and institutional ownership say a lot about how the market views a stock. But markets can be wrong. At Market Inference, we believe that any investment decision should be preceded by an in-depth analysis of the company's fundamental values and a comparison with similar stocks.

Here's a snapshot of some important facts to keep in mind about UPST:

The stock has trailing 12 month price to earnings (Eps) of $0.95 per share
Upstart Holdings, Inc. has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 26.0 compared to the S&P 500 average of 15.97
The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 2.7 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 2.95
Upstart Holdings, Inc. is a Financial Services company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 12.43 and 1.78 respectively

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The above analysis is intended for educational purposes only and was performed on the basis of publicly available data. It is not to be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Any buy, sell, or other recommendations mentioned in the article are direct quotations of consensus recommendations from the analysts covering the stock, and do not represent the opinions of Market Inference or its writers. Past performance, accounting data, and inferences about market position and corporate valuation are not reliable indicators of future price movements. Market Inference does not provide financial advice. Investors should conduct their own review and analysis of any company of interest before making an investment decision.