Upstart Holdings Inc. (UPST)

Upstart Holdings Inc. shares closed near the bottom of their 52-week range, at 3% of the way from the low to the high, after a steep run of losses. The stock is down 12.06% over one week, 13.43% over one month, 29.35% over three months and 47.19% over the past year. Analysts still lean positive, with eight of sixteen rating it Buy, while CleaRank's own score of 40 out of 100 gives it a Sell rating. The gap between the two views is the central question for the stock now.

Upstart reported earnings per share of $0.65 on November 3, 2026, matching the analyst estimate exactly. The stock rose 9.41% in the first trading session after the report. That move stands out against the earnings record, where six of the eight recent reports beat the estimate but five of those six beats were followed by a lower share price in the first session. The market has rarely rewarded a beat with a lift, so the November rally was the exception rather than the pattern.

Revenue grew 41.7% in the latest quarter compared with the same quarter a year earlier, well ahead of the sector median of 11.7%. Profitability has not kept up. The net profit margin is 4.7%, the operating margin is 12.75%, and return on equity is 7.98%, below the sector median of 13.8%. The debt-to-equity ratio is 2.38. The business is growing fast but converting that growth into shareholder returns more slowly than peers.

The trailing P/E ratio of 33.70 is 104.2% above the sector median of 16.5, a clear premium to peers. On price-to-sales, the stock trades at 1.66 against a sector median of 3.8, which is 56.3% below. The gap between the two multiples reflects how the market is pricing the earnings base, which reported GAAP earnings per share of $0.61 over the last twelve months.

Over the last 18 months, insiders sold $27.3M of stock across 58 sales and bought $11.6M across four open-market purchases. Insider sales are often planned in advance or made to cover tax on vesting shares, so they carry less weight than open-market buying. The four purchases are the more direct signal from insiders.

The base case is that UPST stays under pressure until it can reclaim its moving averages. The price sits below the 20-day EMA, the 50-day SMA and the 200-day SMA, and the MACD line is negative, so a sustained recovery would need the price to close back above the 20-day EMA at $22.62 and then the 50-day SMA at $24.06. The median analyst target of $29.00 sits 40.5% above the price, and the range runs from $18.00 to $46.00, so analysts see room for a rebound if growth converts into earnings. The downside case is a break below the 52-week low at $19.71, which would leave the stock with little price history to lean on. The stock's beta of 2.43 means moves in either direction are likely to be sharp.

Support sits at the 52-week low of $19.71, the nearest level below the price. A break below it would take the stock into territory it has not traded in over the past year. Resistance sits first at the 20-day EMA of $22.62, then the 50-day SMA of $24.06, then the 200-day SMA of $28.90. The 52-week high of $52.10 is the furthest level above the price.