Perhaps timely catching Upwork Inc (UPWK) would be a good idea

Upwork Inc (NASDAQ: UPWK) stock fell -0.63% on Monday to $14.23 against a previous-day closing price of $14.32. With 2.12 million shares changed hands, the volume of the stock remained lighter than its average volume of 2.23 million shares. During the session, the Staffing & Employment Services company that operates in wider Industrials sector, reached to the highest price of $14.77 whereas the lowest price it dropped to was $14.22. The 52-week range on UPWK shows that it touched its highest point at $15.88 and its lowest point at $6.56 during that stretch. It currently has a 1-year price target of $16.44. Beta for the stock currently stands at 1.63.

Price Performance and Earnings:

Stock performance is one of the indicators that investors use to determine whether they will profit from a stock. The price performance of UPWK was up-trending over the past week, with a rise of 3.79%, but this was up by 30.31% over a month. Three-month performance dropped to -0.97% while six-month performance rose 68.80%. The stock gained 8.71% in the past year, while it has gained 36.30% so far this year. A look at the trailing 12-month EPS for UPWK yields -0.19 with Next year EPS estimates of 0.67. For the next quarter, that number is 0.17. This implies an EPS growth rate of 890.53% for this year and 40.73% for next year.

Float and Shares Shorts:

At present, 132.37 million UPWK shares are outstanding with a float of 120.04 million shares on hand for trading. On Oct 30, 2023, short shares totaled 8.1 million, which was 5.95% higher than short shares on Sep 28, 2023. In addition to Ms. Hayden Brown as the firm’s President, CEO & Director, Ms. Erica Gessert serves as its Chief Financial Officer.

Institutional Ownership:

Through their ownership of 74.59% of UPWK’s outstanding shares, institutional investors have majority control over the company. Other institutions hold 43.38% of UPWK, in contrast to 34.76% held by mutual funds. Shares owned by individuals account for 27.87%. As the largest shareholder in UPWK with 10.54% of the stake, The Vanguard Group, Inc. holds 14,210,615 shares worth 14,210,615. A second-largest stockholder of UPWK, BlackRock Fund Advisors, holds 7,555,528 shares, controlling over 5.60% of the firm’s shares. Ancient Art LP is the third largest shareholder in UPWK, holding 5,857,915 shares or 4.34% stake. With a 3.41% stake in UPWK, the American Funds Small Cap World Fu is the largest stakeholder. A total of 4,597,398 shares are owned by the mutual fund manager. The Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, which owns about 2.80% of UPWK stock, is the second-largest Mutual Fund holder. It holds 3,778,491 shares valued at 39.49 million. Vanguard Small Cap Index Fund holds 2.32% of the stake in UPWK, owning 3,133,119 shares worth 32.74 million.

Analysts Ratings:

Reading analyst opinions is an effective way to decide where to invest, and there are several opinions available for UPWK since 0 analysts follow the stock currently. In the same way, a target price assigned to a stock can also reveal much about its potential. With UPWK analysts setting a high price target of $19.00 and a low target of $13.00, the average target price over the next 12 months is $16.44. Based on these targets, UPWK could surge 33.52% to reach the target high and fall by -8.64% to reach the target low. Reaching the average price target will result in a growth of 15.53% from current levels.

Summary of Insider Activity:

Insiders traded UPWK stock several times over the past three months with 2 Buys and 4 Sells. In these transactions, 57,030 shares were bought while 44,784 shares were sold. The number of buy transactions has increased to 54 while that of sell transactions has risen to 25 over the past year. The total number of shares bought during that period was 605,513 while 255,480 shares were sold.