Principle Wealth Partners LLC Purchases Shares of 3,355 PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL)

Principle Wealth Partners LLC acquired a new position in PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) during the fourth quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm acquired 3,355 shares of the credit services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $206,000.

A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of PYPL. Nordea Investment Management AB raised its stake in shares of PayPal by 420.6% during the third quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 3,238,980 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $190,371,000 after purchasing an additional 2,616,774 shares during the period. FMR LLC lifted its holdings in PayPal by 29.5% in the 3rd quarter. FMR LLC now owns 6,916,982 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $404,367,000 after buying an additional 1,575,930 shares in the last quarter. LSV Asset Management boosted its position in PayPal by 271.6% in the 3rd quarter. LSV Asset Management now owns 1,533,300 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $89,637,000 after buying an additional 1,120,700 shares during the last quarter. Morgan Stanley grew its stake in shares of PayPal by 4.5% during the third quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 20,069,337 shares of the credit services provider’s stock valued at $1,173,254,000 after acquiring an additional 873,181 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. increased its position in shares of PayPal by 56.5% during the third quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,395,312 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $140,030,000 after acquiring an additional 864,684 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 68.32% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

PYPL has been the subject of a number of recent analyst reports. UBS Group raised their price objective on PayPal from $56.00 to $63.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Friday, March 1st. Wedbush reaffirmed an “outperform” rating and set a $85.00 price target on shares of PayPal in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. BTIG Research reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of PayPal in a report on Friday, January 5th. Sanford C. Bernstein increased their target price on PayPal from $66.00 to $68.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Thursday, April 18th. Finally, Stephens reiterated an “equal weight” rating and issued a $70.00 price target on shares of PayPal in a report on Thursday, February 8th. Twenty-three research analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, PayPal has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $70.72.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, SVP Frank Keller sold 7,686 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Friday, March 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.64, for a total transaction of $466,079.04. Following the completion of the transaction, the senior vice president now owns 23,430 shares in the company, valued at approximately $1,420,795.20. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. 0.14% of the stock is owned by company insiders.

PayPal Trading Up 1.6 %

PayPal stock opened at $66.99 on Tuesday. PayPal Holdings, Inc. has a 12-month low of $50.25 and a 12-month high of $76.54. The stock has a market capitalization of $70.52 billion, a PE ratio of 17.45, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.23 and a beta of 1.45. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $63.03 and a 200-day simple moving average of $60.27. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46, a current ratio of 1.29 and a quick ratio of 1.29.

PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, February 7th. The credit services provider reported $1.48 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.36 by $0.12. The company had revenue of $8.03 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $7.88 billion. PayPal had a return on equity of 20.84% and a net margin of 14.26%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 8.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period last year, the firm earned $1.01 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts expect that PayPal Holdings, Inc. will post 4.02 EPS for the current fiscal year.

PayPal Profile

PayPal Holdings, Inc operates a technology platform that enables digital payments on behalf of merchants and consumers worldwide. It operates a two-sided network at scale that connects merchants and consumers that enables its customers to connect, transact, and send and receive payments through online and in person, as well as transfer and withdraw funds using various funding sources, such as bank accounts, PayPal or Venmo account balance, PayPal and Venmo branded credit products comprising its installment products, credit and debit cards, and cryptocurrencies, as well as other stored value products, including gift cards and eligible rewards.