Truist Securities analyst Jasper Bibb reiterated a Buy rating and $40.00 price target on Universal Technical Institute (NYSE: UTI)

The analyst commented, "Universal Technical Institute's (UTI, Buy) largest competitor Lincoln (LINC, NR) cited CY1Q starts expected to be up +19% y/y at the company's investor day today [see HERE]. LINC guided to starts up high single to low double digits in each quarter of '26 a month ago and 4Q25 starts rose 16% y/y. The investor day webcast is forecast to begin at 11AM, slides are not yet available... Last earnings call, UTI guided to F2Q (March) starts up low-to-mid double digits y/y. We think UTI had good visibility into the quarterly starts at the time of the quarter, but LINC's preliminary F1Q starts are another datapoint suggesting trade school demand has remained robust in early '26. We view LINC's release today as supportive of UTI's double-digit start growth commentary for F2Q and management expectations for mid-to-high single digit start growth over the balance of the year. In our experience, Education stocks typically trade on starts, which investors view as the primary KPI for the sector."

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Shares of Universal Technical Institute closed at $35.98 yesterday.