New York, May 21, 2026, 06:03 EDT
- Nu Holdings was last quoted around $12.79, near Wednesday’s close after a 4.1% gain; the stock was still down 23.6% for 2026.
- UBS cut its price target on Nu to $16.90 from $18.10 on Wednesday while keeping a Buy rating.
- Investors are weighing fast customer and credit growth against higher provisions, or money set aside for loans that may go bad.
Nu Holdings Ltd. shares held near Wednesday’s rebound in early New York price indications on Thursday, after UBS trimmed its target on the stock but kept a bullish rating on the parent of Nubank.
The move matters now because Nu has been trying to steady the market’s view of its credit story after first-quarter results showed record revenue and profit, but also a bigger build in loss reserves. The NYSE cash session had not yet opened; core trading runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET.
The shares closed Wednesday at $12.79, up 4.07%, MarketScreener data showed. That bounce left the stock almost flat over five days but still down 23.6% this year, a sign investors have not fully moved past concerns over lending quality and valuation.
UBS’s May 20 action was mixed: the bank cut its target to $16.90 from $18.10, while maintaining Buy. Benzinga’s analyst tracker showed the latest UBS target implied about 32% upside from the then-current price, and listed UBS as the most recent rating on the stock.
Nu said last week that first-quarter revenue topped $5 billion for the first time, net income reached $871 million and return on equity was 29%. David Vélez, founder and CEO of Nubank, said the quarter included “more than 135 million customers” and called artificial intelligence a core priority, adding that the company was “not adding AI to banking” but “rebuilding banking around AI.” Nu International
The pressure point is credit. TIKR, citing Nu’s earnings call, said the credit portfolio reached $37.2 billion at quarter-end, up 40% year over year on a foreign-exchange-neutral basis, which strips out currency moves. It also said a higher credit-loss allowance pushed risk-adjusted net interest margin — lending profit after expected losses — down by 100 basis points sequentially to 9.5%.
Chief Financial Officer Guilherme Lago pushed back against the idea that the reserve build signaled a worse credit cycle. “The provisions that we have been doing over the past quarters, they do not reflect any directional outlook that we have on the credit cycle,” he said on the earnings call, adding that Nu underwrites loans assuming “the future will be worse than the past.” MarketScreener
JPMorgan analyst Yuri Fernandes, on the same call, framed the issue more simply: “first quarter is usually seasonal, higher provisions.” Lago agreed with the summary and said risk-adjusted margins should move back toward late-2025 levels once seasonality fades. MarketScreener
The competitive backdrop is getting heavier. Nu said Brazil surpassed 115 million customers, making it the largest private financial institution in the country, while Mexico passed 15 million customers and reached break-even. That puts the digital bank deeper into the territory of incumbent Brazilian lenders such as Itaú Unibanco and Banco Bradesco, which also reported quarterly results this month.
But the trade can still break the other way. If early-stage delinquencies keep rising, if provisions stay elevated beyond the seasonal first quarter, or if investors grow more cautious about Nu’s U.S. expansion plans, the stock’s rebound could stall. Lago also said investor questions still cluster around asset quality and international expansion, with some more skeptical of the U.S. push.
For Thursday’s session, the test is narrow but important: whether buyers treat the UBS target cut as already reflected in the stock, or use it as another reason to fade the post-earnings bounce. The numbers give both sides something to work with.
