Head to Head Survey: PROG (NYSE:PRG) & Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST)

Upstart (NASDAQ:UPST) and PROG (NYSE:PRG) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their dividends, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, profitability, earnings and valuation.

Volatility and Risk

Upstart has a beta of 2.29, indicating that its stock price is 129% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, PROG has a beta of 1.79, indicating that its stock price is 79% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings and recommmendations for Upstart and PROG, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Upstart	1	7	8	0	2.44
PROG	0	3	6	1	2.80

Upstart presently has a consensus target price of $44.40, suggesting a potential upside of 48.84%. PROG has a consensus target price of $49.44, suggesting a potential upside of 25.81%. Given Upstart’s higher possible upside, equities research analysts clearly believe Upstart is more favorable than PROG.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

63.0% of Upstart shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 97.9% of PROG shares are owned by institutional investors. 17.3% of Upstart shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.7% of PROG shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, endowments and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Upstart and PROG”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Upstart	$1.04 billion	2.78	$53.60 million	$0.49	60.88
PROG	$2.61 billion	0.60	$146.79 million	$3.62	10.86

PROG has higher revenue and earnings than Upstart. PROG is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Upstart, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Upstart and PROG’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Upstart	4.84%	7.13%	1.82%
PROG	5.57%	21.88%	9.15%

Summary

PROG beats Upstart on 9 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Upstart

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. Upstart Holdings, Inc. was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in San Mateo, California.

About PROG

PROG Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:PRG) is a financial technology holding company based in Salt Lake City, Utah with three business segments: Progressive Leasing, which offers lease-to-own transactions primarily to credit-challenged consumers through e-commerce and point-of-sale retail partners, via online, mobile, and in-store solutions; Vive Financial, which provides consumers who may not qualify for traditional prime lending with a variety of second-look, revolving credit products through private label and branded credit cards; and Four Technologies, which provides consumers of all credit backgrounds Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) options through four interest-free installments via its platform, Four.