Handelsbanken Fonder AB Boosts Position in PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL)

Handelsbanken Fonder AB increased its stake in PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) by 6.6% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The firm owned 303,597 shares of the credit services provider’s stock after buying an additional 18,863 shares during the period. Handelsbanken Fonder AB’s holdings in PayPal were worth $18,644,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in PYPL. Nordea Investment Management AB increased its stake in PayPal by 420.6% in the 3rd quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 3,238,980 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $190,371,000 after buying an additional 2,616,774 shares during the period. FMR LLC increased its stake 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 during the period. LSV Asset Management increased its stake 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 worth $89,637,000 after buying an additional 1,120,700 shares during the period. Morgan Stanley increased its stake in PayPal by 4.5% in the 3rd quarter. Morgan Stanley now owns 20,069,337 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $1,173,254,000 after buying an additional 873,181 shares during the period. Finally, Envestnet Asset Management Inc. increased its stake in PayPal by 56.5% in the 3rd quarter. Envestnet Asset Management Inc. now owns 2,395,312 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $140,030,000 after buying an additional 864,684 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 68.32% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have commented on PYPL. BTIG Research reissued a “neutral” rating on shares of PayPal in a research report on Friday, January 5th. Daiwa Capital Markets downgraded shares of PayPal from an “outperform” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their target price for the company from $64.00 to $62.00 in a research report on Tuesday, February 13th. StockNews.com raised shares of PayPal from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, April 5th. Canaccord Genuity Group cut their target price on shares of PayPal from $100.00 to $80.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, February 8th. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada reissued an “outperform” rating and set a $74.00 target price on shares of PayPal in a research report on Thursday, March 21st. Twenty-three investment analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and thirteen have assigned a buy rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $70.47.

PayPal Price Performance

NASDAQ:PYPL opened at $63.19 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.46, a current ratio of 1.29 and a quick ratio of 1.29. The firm has a market cap of $66.52 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 16.46, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.38 and a beta of 1.45. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $62.40 and a 200-day moving average price of $60.00. PayPal Holdings, Inc. has a 1-year low of $50.25 and a 1-year high of $76.54.

PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, February 7th. The credit services provider reported $1.48 earnings per share for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.36 by $0.12. The firm had revenue of $8.03 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $7.88 billion. PayPal had a net margin of 14.26% and a return on equity of 20.84%. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 8.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $1.01 EPS. Equities research analysts forecast that PayPal Holdings, Inc. will post 4.04 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, SVP Frank Keller sold 7,686 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Friday, March 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $60.64, for a total value of $466,079.04. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president now owns 23,430 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $1,420,795.20. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink. 0.13% of the stock is owned by insiders.

About PayPal

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.