# STEP — AI stock forecast & analysis

> AI-generated analysis by K3vl4r — 2026-07-23. Informational only, not financial advice.

**Recommendation:** TRIM

**Scores (0–100):** Overall 3.8 · Fundamentals 3 · Technicals 2.8 · Growth 5 · Risk 8

## Summary

STEP is a broken chart with deteriorating fundamentals heading into a binary earnings print on Aug 6. Live price ~$40.20 sits near 52-week lows ($38.85) after a 45% five-month decline, with negative equity (-$413M), -$978M TTM EBITDA, and -750% ROE — the AI-driven forecasts calling for 25%+ upside look aggressive against this backdrop and prior optimistic base targets that failed to print.

## Price targets (3-month horizon)

- Bear: $34.00
- Base: $42.00
- Bull: $52.00

## News context

Signal: two sell-side firms (Evercore ISI and BMO) cut price targets to $50 in mid-July while maintaining Outperform, and Morgan Stanley cut to $63 with Equal-Weight — the analyst consensus is capitulating on magnitude even while ratings stay constructive. A Seeking Alpha piece (Jul 21) explicitly flags the 45% five-month drawdown tied to AI-driven concerns impacting software investments, rating STEP a hold. The SPI Deal Benchmarking partnership with PitchBook (announced June 17) is a genuine strategic development that could monetize StepStone's proprietary private-markets deal data, but there's no revenue disclosure yet — it's optionality, not a near-term catalyst. Noise: retail social sentiment is 75% bullish (mostly low-quality alerts and lotto call speculation), which reads contrarian bearish given the tape. The Aug 6 earnings print is the dominant catalyst — everything else is background.

## About
- Methodology: https://app.k3vl4r.com/methodology
- Full report: https://app.k3vl4r.com/r/step-ai-stock-forecast-cebd0854255aa3091dd22405644dd43e
- AI-generated; model outputs can be wrong. Not financial advice.