PYPL Shares Are Up, But Are Nowhere Near Their 52 Week High.

By Kim Brooks • Wednesday, December 13 15:23 • Permanent Link

Rocketing to a price of $61.18 during today's afternoon trading session, shares of PayPal are still -11.42% below their average target price of $69.07. Could there be more upside potential for the stock? Analysts are giving PYPL an average rating of buy and target prices ranging from $51.08 to $109.6 dollars per share.

The market seems to share this rosy outlook, since PayPal has a short interest of only 2.0%. This represents the percentage of the share float that is being shorted, and each short position stands for an investor's expectation that the price of the stock will go down in the future.

When a stock is sold short, it means an investor has borrowed shares of the stock from their broker, and then sold them at the going market price. The investor hopes for the price to decline, so that they might buy those shares back at a lower price in the future. Once they do, they can return the borrowed shares to their broker, and keep the profit they made on the transaction.

One way to get an idea of the market sentiment on a stock is to check its rate of institutional ownership. In the case of PayPal, institutional investors own 72.3% of the shares. This would indicate a positive sentiment towards the stock among institutions. What does this really tell us?

Institutional investors such as hedge funds, investment firms, and wealth managers devote significant resources to identifying good investments. If they have decided to invest in PYPL, it probably means they believe it is a solid investment choice. But it could also mean they are buying up shares in an effort to acquire the company or get seats on the board of directors. Also bear in mind that institutions are fallible (just maybe not quite as fallible as the average retail investor), so they may simply be wrong when they think they've found a good stock.

In conclusion, we see mixed market sentiment regarding PayPal because of an analyst consensus of some upside potential, a buy rating, an average amount of shares sold short, and an average number of institutional investors. At Market Inference, we believe that any investment decision should be preceded by an in-depth analysis of the company's fundamental values and a comparison with similar stocks.

Here's a snapshot of some important facts to keep in mind about PYPL:

The stock has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $3.35
PayPal has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 18.3 compared to the S&P 500 average of 15.97
The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 3.35 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 2.95
PayPal is a Consumer Discretionary company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 22.96 and 4.24 respectively

The above analysis is intended for educational purposes only and was performed on the basis of publicly available data. It is not to be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Any buy, sell, or other recommendations mentioned in the article are direct quotations of consensus recommendations from the analysts covering the stock, and do not represent the opinions of Market Inference or its writers. Past performance, accounting data, and inferences about market position and corporate valuation are not reliable indicators of future price movements. Market Inference does not provide financial advice. Investors should conduct their own review and analysis of any company of interest before making an investment decision.