Upwork Inc. (NASDAQ: UPWK) Now $9.79 Higher From Its Low (0.71), Does It Still Have A Growth Story?

Upwork Inc. (NASDAQ:UPWK) currently has a daily average trading volume of 1.34M but it saw 1566677 shares traded on Wednesday. With a market cap of 1.46B USD, stock’s current market price of $10.50 came rising about 0.38 while comparing to the previous closing price of $10.46. In past 52 weeks, the stock remained buoying in the range of price level as high as $25.11 and as low as $9.79. In the recent trading on the day, stock has struck highest price mark of $10.53 while lowest mark touched by it was $10.16.

Taking a look at 20-day trading activity of Upwork Inc. (UPWK) gives us an average price of $11.49, while its current price level is -58.19% below from 52-week high level whereas it is 7.25% above from lowest level seen by the stock during that period. Simple moving average of 50 days or SMA-50 of the stock’s closing price is $12.17 while that of 200 days or SMA-200 reads an average of $15.17. A closer look into the stock’s movement over the week reveals that its volatility is standing at 5.47% during that period while stretching the period over a month that decreases to 5.29%. It is also necessary to take a look into other indicators of a stock too, to get a better idea about its price movement. And in doing so, we find stock’s 14-day relative strength index (RSI) standing at 36.34 which implies that the stock is in neutral territory.

Upwork Inc. (UPWK)’s stock is currently under the radar of 11 analysts who are in consensus at a 12-month price target range of between $13.00 and $28.00 for company’s shares. The average price target assigned by the average number of analysts to a stock is a way to gauge worth of any stock in next 52 weeks. And in assigning price target to a stock, some analysts adopt a bearish approach by advocating lower-than-average price target which in this case is $13.00 while some adopt bullish approach by assigning higher-than-average price target which reads the price to top $28.00. Average price target assigned by them is $17.91 which highlights an upside potential of 41.37% for the stock over that period. And to attain the median price target of $17.00 assigned by those analysts, stock has to add about 38.24% of value to its current levels.

Data by FactSet Research shows that 11 analysts have issued their ratings for the stock. 0 of them are in opinions that stock is a Sell, while 0 are advising it as an Overweight. 8 analysts suggested the investors to Buy the stock while 3 advised them to Hold. Recommendations by all of those brokerages imply a consensus rating of Overweight for the stock and that issued by Wall Street to investors is Moderate Buy.

The company’s shares got several price updates from the analyst firms in past one month and most recent of them is from the RBC Capital Mkts which initiated the stock as “Sector Perform” in its note to investors issued on May 23, 2022, recommending a price target of $21 for it. Stifel downgraded its recommendation for the stock as a “Hold” from “Buy” on May 17, 2022 while assigning a price target range of $30-$20. Stifel issued its recommendations for the stock as it reiterated the price target for the stock in the range of between $40 and $34.

Over the week, UPWK’s stock price is moving -8.54% down while it is -19.60% when we observe its performance for the past one month. Year-to-date it is 0.57% up and over the past year, the stock is showing a downside performance of -41.67%.

The latest quarterly earnings report issued by the company was for quarter ended 9/29/2022, when its quarterly earnings per share (EPS) of -$0.03 beat the consensus estimate of -$0.08 for the same. The company is expected to be releasing its next quarterly report in 04/26/2023, for which analysts forecasted an EPS of -$0.03 while estimate for next year EPS is -$0.12. For UPWK, analysts are forecasting an EPS-growth rate of -300.00% for current year and estimate for EPS growth in next year is 125.00%. In next quarter, company is expected to be making quarterly sales of $167.14 million as analysts are expecting the sales for current fiscal year at $616.02 million and seeing the company making $724.51 million in sales next year. Moreover, analysts are in estimates of $159.25 million for current-quarter revenue.

Currently, Upwork Inc.’s total number of outstanding shares is 131.82M with 8.31% of that held by the insiders while 75.62% of its common stock has been owned by the institutions. Company’s return on investment (ROI) stands at -11.50% and return on equity (ROE) at -36.40%. It has a 30.61 of forward P/E ratio. Stock’s beta reads 1.52. Stock has a price to book (P/B) ratio of 5.56 while price to sale or P/S ratio amounts to 2.36. Its return on asset (ROA) is -8.30% on average.

A filing at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that American Funds Small Cap World Fu came shrinking its share ownership by 299.45% in the Upwork Inc. (UPWK) increasing its stake to 5.40% with control over 5.36 million shares in the company. As per SEC documents, American Funds Small Cap World Fu sought 7,150,413 of company’s common stock of worth $81.09 million as per recent closing price of the stock. American Funds Small Cap World Fu is not the only institutional holder which restructured its stake in Upwork Inc., as Vanguard Total Stock Market Index picked 3,629,123 shares of worth $41.15 million to bring its holdings to a total of 58634.0 shares. In the most recent quarter, Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund came rising its stake by 0.55% in the company and now holds 3.06 million or 2.31% of the company’s stake having worth of about 34.73 million.