ING Groep NV Sells 23,773 Shares of PayPal Holdings, Inc. $PYPL

ING Groep NV trimmed its stake in PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) by 49.3% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 24,444 shares of the credit services provider’s stock after selling 23,773 shares during the quarter. ING Groep NV’s holdings in PayPal were worth $1,427,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Several other hedge funds have also recently modified their holdings of PYPL. Norges Bank purchased a new position in shares of PayPal in the fourth quarter worth $949,758,000. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its stake in shares of PayPal by 6.5% in 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 purchasing an additional 5,534,462 shares during the last quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP raised its stake in shares of PayPal by 35.9% in the third quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 8,177,536 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $548,520,000 after purchasing an additional 2,160,227 shares during the last quarter. Two Sigma Investments LP purchased a new position in shares of PayPal in the third quarter worth $97,794,000. Finally, Invesco Ltd. raised its stake in shares of PayPal by 10.9% in the third quarter. Invesco Ltd. now owns 11,131,949 shares of the credit services provider’s stock worth $746,508,000 after purchasing an additional 1,093,365 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 68.32% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several research analysts have recently weighed in on the company. UBS Group boosted their price target on PayPal from $44.00 to $48.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research note on Wednesday, May 6th. KGI Securities reiterated a “hold” rating and set a $55.00 price objective on shares of PayPal in a research report on Monday, March 2nd. Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $59.00 price objective on shares of PayPal in a research report on Wednesday, May 6th. Canaccord Genuity Group reiterated a “hold” rating and set a $42.00 price objective on shares of PayPal in a research report on Wednesday, May 20th. Finally, BMO Capital Markets assumed coverage on PayPal in a research report on Tuesday, April 21st. They set a “market perform” rating and a $52.00 price objective for the company. Eight analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, thirty-two have issued a Hold rating and five have given a Sell rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, PayPal has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $55.85.

PayPal Stock Up 0.5%

PayPal stock opened at $41.46 on Wednesday. The stock has a market cap of $36.57 billion, a PE ratio of 7.78, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.03 and a beta of 1.34. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.47, a quick ratio of 1.26 and a current ratio of 1.26. PayPal Holdings, Inc. has a one year low of $38.46 and a one year high of $79.50. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $46.07 and a 200 day moving average of $50.25.

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

PayPal Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, June 25th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, June 4th will be issued a dividend of $0.14 per share. This represents a $0.56 annualized dividend and a yield of 1.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, June 4th. PayPal’s payout ratio is currently 10.51%.

Insider Buying and Selling at PayPal

In other PayPal news, CAO Chris Natali sold 1,337 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, April 29th. The stock was sold at an average price of $49.46, for a total transaction of $66,128.02. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer owned 1,586 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $78,443.56. The trade was a 45.74% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Frank Keller sold 4,612 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Wednesday, June 3rd. The shares were sold at an average price of $42.54, for a total value of $196,194.48. Following the sale, the insider directly owned 41,567 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,768,260.18. This represents a 9.99% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 20,612 shares of company stock valued at $966,623. Company insiders own 0.63% of the company’s stock.

PayPal 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.