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The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: PayPal, Target and eBay

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For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL –September 12, 2018 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: PayPal (PYPL - Free Report) , Target (TGT - Free Report) and eBay (EBAY - Free Report) .

Here are highlights from Tuesday’s Analyst Blog:

PayPal Stock Jumps Again: Time to Buy?

PayPal saw its stock price climb over 2% Tuesday after the company announced its Funds Now instant payment feature for businesses. PayPal’s latest move helps it better compete in a crowded digital payment industry. The question for investors is should they consider buying PYPL stock at the moment?

Funds Now

PayPal announced Tuesday its new Funds Now feature allows the firm’s business clients to receive instant payouts on transactions. The digital payment firm said that it has started to roll out Funds Now to select business clients and sellers to give them access to money within second of many transactions. PayPal said its latest offering won’t cost its business customers any more money.

The hope is that Funds Now will attract more business clients to PayPal and encourage its current business partners, of which it boasts 17 million, to stay. PayPal said that it plans to eventually introduce this offering globally after its pilot program. “It’s our commitment to helping you get your money faster and helping make sure that nothing gets in your way when you get paid,” the firm wrote in a company statement.

Investors should note that PayPal’s move comes nearly two years after digital payment rival Stripe launched its instant payout feature. Stripe is a mobile commerce firm that currently boasts clients from Lyft and Instacart to giants such as Target.

Overview

PayPal, which spun off from eBay in 2015, currently claims 244 million active account holders from 200 markets. These clients also include its peer-to-peer payment app Venmo, among other offerings. The firm has also made some acquisitions this year, which include its June purchase of Hyperwallet for roughly $400 million to help it expand its global payout capabilities. PayPal acquired fraud prevention and risk management firm Simility for $120 million in cash that same month.

These purchases followed the firm’s $2.2 billion May acquisition of small business commerce platform iZettle, which operates mostly in Europe and Latin America. Venmo has also landed partnerships with Uber and Grubhub in its battle with Square’s Cash App, JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM) QuickPay—and don’t forget about Apple- and Google Pay.

PayPal also recently announced that it redesigned its mobile app to help the firm get back to its core payment roots. “We are making the app simpler to use and making it even easier for our customers to send and request money,” PayPal wrote in a statement.

Stock Performance

Investors will see that shares of PYPL have soared since the company spilt from eBay. Shares of PayPal have skyrocketed over 135% during the last two years, which outpaces its industry’s 44% climb and the S&P 500’s 34% gain. PYPL’s stock price is up roughly 13% over the last six months and currently sits a few dollars below its 52-week high of $93.44 per share.

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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit http://www.zacks.com/performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.


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