Paylocity (NASDAQ:PCTY) Reaches New 52-Week High – Here’s Why

Paylocity Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:PCTY) shares reached a new 52-week high during mid-day trading on Thursday. The stock traded as high as $163.59 and last traded at $164.4380, with a volume of 32,013 shares trading hands. The stock had previously closed at $159.10.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have commented on PCTY shares. Wall Street Zen upgraded shares of Paylocity from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research note on Saturday, September 19th. Robert W. Baird set a $201.00 target price on shares of Paylocity in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. BMO Capital Markets upped their target price on shares of Paylocity from $143.00 to $175.00 and gave the company an “outperform” rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Weiss Ratings raised shares of Paylocity from a “hold (c-)” rating to a “hold (c)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, September 22nd. Finally, Truist Financial reduced their price target on shares of Paylocity from $180.00 to $165.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, June 29th. Twelve investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $163.76.

Paylocity Stock Up 3.8%

The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 1.09 and a current ratio of 1.09. The firm has a market capitalization of $8.76 billion, a P/E ratio of 33.34, a P/E/G ratio of 1.88 and a beta of 0.50. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $149.07 and a two-hundred day moving average price of $125.11.

Paylocity (NASDAQ:PCTY) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Tuesday, August 4th. The software maker reported $1.84 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.62 by $0.22. Paylocity had a return on equity of 27.02% and a net margin of 15.23%. The business had revenue of $444.73 million for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $431.46 million. During the same period in the prior year, the company posted $1.56 EPS. The business’s revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. Research analysts forecast that Paylocity Holding Corporation will post 6.92 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, CFO Ryan Glenn sold 3,345 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, August 19th. The shares were sold at an average price of $149.75, for a total value of $500,913.75. Following the transaction, the chief financial officer directly owned 122,563 shares in the company, valued at approximately $18,353,809.25. This trade represents a 2.66% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, Director Craig Conway sold 3,145 shares of Paylocity stock in a transaction dated Thursday, August 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $156.80, for a total transaction of $493,136.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director directly owned 2,207 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $346,057.60. This trade represents a 58.76% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. In the last 90 days, insiders sold 54,214 shares of company stock worth $8,322,580. Company insiders own 19.40% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Paylocity

A number of large investors have recently bought and sold shares of PCTY. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Paylocity during the second quarter valued at about $430,315,000. Jupiter Topco LLC bought a new position in Paylocity in the 2nd quarter valued at about $70,540,000. Deutsche Bank AG bought a new position in Paylocity in the 2nd quarter valued at about $54,906,000. Bank of America Corp DE bought a new position in Paylocity in the 2nd quarter valued at about $54,867,000. Finally, Amundi increased its stake in Paylocity by 143.3% during the 1st quarter. Amundi now owns 606,158 shares of the software maker’s stock valued at $65,489,000 after buying an additional 357,001 shares during the period. Institutional investors own 94.76% of the company’s stock.

About Paylocity

Paylocity Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:PCTY) provides cloud-based human capital management (HCM) software for organizations and their employees. Its platform is designed to help businesses manage payroll, human resources, employee benefits, workforce administration and related compliance activities through a unified system.

The company’s products and services include payroll processing, tax and regulatory support, time and labor management, benefits administration, talent acquisition and management, employee performance tools, expense management, reporting and analytics.