Key Stats for StepStone Stock
- Price change for StepStone stock: -8%
- $STEP Stock Price as of Aug. 7: $46
- 52-Week High: $78
- $STEP Stock Price Target: $70
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What Happened?
StepStone (STEP) stock fell almost 8% on Friday after the private markets investment firm missed Wall Street’s earnings and revenue estimates for its fiscal Q1.
Earnings per share came in at $0.48, two cents below the $0.50 analysts expected, while revenue was $379 million against the $309 million consensus.
But results showed strong underlying growth. Fee-related earnings rose 30% year-over-year to $106 million, and adjusted net income climbed to $60 million. StepStone’s combined fee-earning assets and undeployed capital reached roughly $193 billion, up 19% organically from a year ago.
Fundraising was a bright spot too. The company pulled in nearly $40 billion in gross AUM additions over the past 12 months, its best year ever, including $10 billion in the most recent quarter alone.
Its Private Wealth platform had a record quarter with $2.8 billion in subscriptions, pushing total Private Wealth assets above $21 billion. A big driver was SPRING, the firm’s venture and growth equity fund, which delivered a 23% net return in the first half of the calendar year, though management cautioned that level of performance isn’t typical.
Alongside the earnings miss, StepStone raised its quarterly dividend by nearly 18%, from $0.28 to $0.33 per share, which works out to an annualized yield of about 2.8%.
The company also continued buying back stock, repurchasing $21 million worth of shares since the end of fiscal 2026.
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What the Market Is Telling Us About StepStone Stock
The drop in StepStone stock shows that even solid underlying business growth isn’t enough to satisfy investors when both earnings and revenue come in below expectations.
Fee-related earnings growing 30% and adjusted net income climbing 22% would normally be seen as strong results, but the headline miss on consensus numbers overshadowed that progress in Friday’s trading.
The dividend increase, while a clear vote of confidence from management, wasn’t enough to offset the disappointment. Investors appear to be weighing near-term execution against the company’s longer-term story, which includes plans to buy in the remaining Private Wealth profits interest to capture more of the economics from one of its fastest-growing businesses.
With analysts maintaining a “Moderate Buy” rating and an average price target of $70.88, well above StepStone stock’s current price near $46, Wall Street still seems to view this as a growth story that’s intact, just one that stumbled on a single quarter’s numbers rather than one facing a deeper structural problem.
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
