Brokerages Set PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) Price Target at $55.85

Shares of PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) have been given a consensus recommendation of “Hold” by the forty-five research firms that are currently covering the company, Marketbeat.com reports. Five analysts have rated the stock with a sell recommendation, thirty-two have issued a hold recommendation and eight have given a buy recommendation to the company. The average 12 month price objective among brokers that have issued ratings on the stock in the last year is $55.8514.

A number of research firms have recently commented on PYPL. Raymond James Financial reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of PayPal in a research note on Monday, February 23rd. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft cut their target price on PayPal from $50.00 to $45.00 in a research note on Monday, May 11th. Sanford C. Bernstein reaffirmed a “market perform” rating on shares of PayPal in a research note on Tuesday, February 24th. Zacks Research raised PayPal from a “strong sell” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Friday, April 17th. Finally, Mizuho reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $50.00 target price (down from $60.00) on shares of PayPal in a research note on Thursday, April 16th.

PayPal Trading Up 0.7%

Shares of PYPL stock opened at $41.53 on Wednesday. PayPal has a 1 year low of $38.46 and a 1 year high of $79.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a current ratio of 1.26 and a quick ratio of 1.26. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $45.85 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $49.93. The company has a market cap of $36.63 billion, a PE ratio of 7.79, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 1.34.

PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) last released its earnings results on Tuesday, May 5th. The credit services provider reported $1.34 EPS for the quarter, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.27 by $0.07. The firm had revenue of $8.35 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $8.05 billion. PayPal had a return on equity of 25.02% and a net margin of 15.00%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 7.2% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the prior year, the firm posted $1.33 earnings per share. Research analysts predict that PayPal will post 5.3 earnings per share for the current year.

PayPal Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 25th. Investors of record on Thursday, June 4th will be paid a $0.14 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 4th. This represents a $0.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.3%. PayPal’s dividend payout ratio is 10.51%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, insider Frank Keller sold 10,732 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.96, for a total value of $536,170.72. Following the transaction, the insider owned 41,567 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,076,687.32. This represents a 20.52% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CAO Chris Natali sold 1,337 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, April 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.46, for a total value of $66,128.02. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer directly owned 1,586 shares in the company, valued at approximately $78,443.56. This trade represents a 45.74% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders have sold a total of 20,612 shares of company stock valued at $966,623 over the last quarter. 0.63% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its holdings in PayPal by 6.5% during the fourth quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 90,376,927 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $5,276,205,000 after buying an additional 5,534,462 shares during the period. Rule One Partners LLC purchased a new stake in PayPal during the fourth quarter worth $2,043,000. NEOS Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in PayPal by 47.8% during the third quarter. NEOS Investment Management LLC now owns 411,262 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $27,579,000 after buying an additional 132,942 shares during the period. Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC lifted its holdings in PayPal by 21.1% during the third quarter. Kovitz Investment Group Partners LLC now owns 463,701 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $31,096,000 after buying an additional 80,744 shares during the period. Finally, Capital Research Global Investors lifted its holdings in PayPal by 2.3% during the third quarter. Capital Research Global Investors now owns 27,953,803 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $1,874,637,000 after buying an additional 636,441 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 68.32% of the company’s stock.

PayPal Company Profile

PayPal Holdings, Inc operates a global digital payments platform that enables consumers and merchants to send and receive payments online, on mobile devices and at the point of sale. The company provides a broad set of payment solutions, including a digital wallet, merchant payment processing, checkout services, invoicing and fraud-management tools. PayPal’s platform is designed to support e-commerce, in-person retail and person-to-person transfers, targeting both individual consumers and businesses of varying sizes.

Key products and services in PayPal’s portfolio include the PayPal wallet and checkout ecosystem, the Venmo peer-to-peer mobile app, Braintree’s developer-focused payment gateway, Xoom for international money transfers, and PayPal Credit and buy-now-pay-later options.