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PayPal Stock Jumps Again: Time to Buy PYPL?

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PayPal (PYPL - Free Report) 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 (TGT - Free Report) .

Overview

PayPal, which spun off from eBay (EBAY - Free Report) 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 (SQ - Free Report) Cash App, JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM) QuickPay—and don’t forget about Apple (AAPL - Free Report) and Google (GOOGL - Free Report) 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.

 

 

Outlook

Looking ahead, PayPal’s Q3 revenues are projected to jump by 13.2% to hit $3.67 billion, based on our current Zacks Consensus Estimate. PYPL’s fiscal year revenues are expected to reach $15.47 billion, which would mark over an 18% climb.  

Investors might be even more pleased with PayPal’s bottom line growth projections. The firm’s adjusted quarterly earnings are projected to climb by over 17.4% to hit $0.54 per share, while its full-year EPS figure is expected to expand by over 23%. PayPal has also earned 14 upward earnings estimate revisions for fiscal 2018 over the last 60 days, against just one downward change. However, the company’s earnings revision activity for the current quarter and fiscal 2019 has been mixed.

Bottom Line

PayPal is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) based on its recent earnings estimate revision trends. The firm also looks poised to continue to expand both its top and bottom lines in the quickly expanding digital and mobile payment economy. With that said, PayPal is trading at 43.8X forward 12-month Zacks Consensus EPS estimates, which marks a significant premium compared to its industry’s 32.8X average and the S&P’s 17.4X.

Therefore, it might be best to wait for PayPal stock to cool off a bit and consider scooping PYPL up below its current price point.

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