PYPL

In its upcoming report, Paypal (PYPL) is predicted by Wall Street analysts to post quarterly earnings of $1.31 per share, reflecting a decline of 2.2% compared to the same period last year. Revenues are forecasted to be $8.7 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 3.3%. The current level reflects an upward revision of 0.1% in the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter over the past 30 days. This demonstrates how the analysts covering the stock have collectively reappraised their initial projections over this period. Prior to a company's earnings announcement, it is crucial to consider revisions to earnings estimates. This serves as a significant indicator for predicting potential investor actions regarding the stock. Empirical research has consistently demonstrated a robust correlation between trends in earnings estimate revision and the short-term price performance of a stock. While it's common for investors to rely on consensus earnings and revenue estimates for assessing how the business may have performed during the quarter, exploring analysts' forecasts for key metrics can yield valuable insights. That said, let's delve into the average estimates of some Paypal metrics that Wall Street analysts commonly model and monitor. Analysts expect 'Net Revenues- Revenues from other value added services' to come in at $885.49 million. The estimate points to a change of -1.1% from the year-ago quarter. The combined assessment of analysts suggests that 'Net Revenues- Transaction revenues' will likely reach $7.82 billion. The estimate suggests a change of +4% year over year. The collective assessment of analysts points to an estimated 'Total Payment Volume (TPV)' of $489.44 billion. The estimate compares to the year-ago value of $458.09 billion. It is projected by analysts that the 'Transaction margin' will reach 44.6%. The estimate compares to the year-ago value of 46.0%. According to the collective judgment of analysts, 'Active accounts' should come in at 440 . Compared to the current estimate, the company reported 438 in the same quarter of the previous year. View all Key Company Metrics for Paypal here>>> Over the past month, shares of Paypal have returned +8.9% versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's no change. Currently, PYPL carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell), suggesting that it may underperform the overall market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>> . Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Paypal (PYPL) is expected to deliver a year-over-year decline in earnings on higher revenues when it reports results for the quarter ended September 2026. This widely-known consensus outlook gives a good sense of the company's earnings picture, but how the actual results compare to these estimates is a powerful factor that could impact its near-term stock price. The stock might move higher if these key numbers top expectations in the upcoming earnings report, which is expected to be released on October 27. On the other hand, if they miss, the stock may move lower. While the sustainability of the immediate price change and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's discussion of business conditions on the earnings call, it's worth handicapping the probability of a positive EPS surprise. This technology platform and digital payments company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $1.31 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -2.2%. Revenues are expected to be $8.7 billion, up 3.4% from the year-ago quarter. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 0.12% higher over the last 30 days to the current level. This is essentially a reflection of how the covering analysts have collectively reassessed their initial estimates over this period. Investors should keep in mind that an aggregate change may not always reflect the direction of estimate revisions by each of the covering analysts. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise Estimate revisions ahead of a company's earnings release offer clues to the business conditions for the period whose results are coming out. Our proprietary surprise prediction model -- the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction) -- has this insight at its core. The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a more recent version of the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier. Thus, a positive or negative Earnings ESP reading theoretically indicates the likely deviation of the actual earnings from the consensus estimate. However, the model's predictive power is significant for positive ESP readings only. A positive Earnings ESP is a strong predictor of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). Our research shows that stocks with this combination produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time, and a solid Zacks Rank actually increases the predictive power of Earnings ESP. Please note that a negative Earnings ESP reading is not indicative of an earnings miss. Our research shows that it is difficult to predict an earnings beat with any degree of confidence for stocks with negative Earnings ESP readings and/or Zacks Rank of 4 (Sell) or 5 (Strong Sell). For Paypal, the Most Accurate Estimate is lower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate, suggesting that analysts have recently become bearish on the company's earnings prospects. This has resulted in an Earnings ESP of -3.18%. On the other hand, the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank of #4. So, this combination makes it difficult to conclusively predict that Paypal will beat the consensus EPS estimate. Analysts often consider to what extent a company has been able to match consensus estimates in the past while calculating their estimates for its future earnings. So, it's worth taking a look at the surprise history for gauging its influence on the upcoming number. For the last reported quarter, it was expected that Paypal would post earnings of $1.28 per share when it actually produced earnings of $1.38, delivering a surprise of +7.81%. Over the last four quarters, the company has beaten consensus EPS estimates three times. An earnings beat or miss may not be the sole basis for a stock moving higher or lower. Many stocks end up losing ground despite an earnings beat due to other factors that disappoint investors. Similarly, unforeseen catalysts help a number of stocks gain despite an earnings miss. That said, betting on stocks that are expected to beat earnings expectations does increase the odds of success. This is why it's worth checking a company's Earnings ESP and Zacks Rank ahead of its quarterly release. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported. Paypal doesn't appear a compelling earnings-beat candidate. However, investors should pay attention to other factors too for betting on this stock or staying away from it ahead of its earnings release. Stay on top of upcoming earnings announcements with the Zacks Earnings Calendar. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

It's not too tough to figure out why shares of payment middleman PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) have struggled since peaking in 2021. The company's dominance of the online payment space at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic positioned it perfectly for the surge in e-commerce the pandemic would spur. In the meantime, alternatives like Stripe and Wise became more popular, as did Alphabet's Google Pay and Apple Pay. PayPal stock is now more than 80% below its 2021 high, and still within sight of February's multiyear low. Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue » The sellers, however, have arguably overshot their target. While the company's best days are behind it, this ticker is undervalued for a handful of reasons. Not all cheap stocks are necessarily worth buying. But with PYPL priced at less than 10 times next year's projected consensus per-share profit of $5.77, the crowd is arguably looking past a couple of important details here. Chief among those details is the modest growth that PayPal is still experiencing. While its double-digit growth era may be in the rearview mirror, its second-quarter revenue still improved 3% year over year (on a currency-neutral basis), driven by an 8% year-over-year improvement in total transactions and 10% growth in total payment volume. Although earnings were down slightly, mostly due to higher transaction expenses, PayPal still upped its full-year profit guidance from its previous outlook offered in May. That progress is expected to translate into top-line growth of over 4% next year, and earnings growth of more than 7%. Perhaps the most compelling detail of Q2's results still not reflected in the stock's price, however, is how profitable PayPal remains despite competitive headwinds. Through the first half of 2026, the company turned $17 billion in revenue into net income of $2.2 billion. That's a net margin of nearly 13%, supporting continued value creation through ongoing stock buybacks. In this vein, PayPal has repurchased nearly 10% of its outstanding stock over the past 12 months. PayPal's got a compelling past and present, and there's reason for optimism about the future. But is there enough bullish hope here to step into this deeply discounted stock? Arguably yes, although not quite for the reason you might think. PayPal isn't priced like a growth stock, simply because it's no longer one. It's now a value name, and while it's still cheap, even by value-stock standards, as noted, it's not difficult to understand investors' general disinterest in owning this ticker at this time. What most of this crowd is overlooking is that 439 million PayPal accounts are still active, with 228 million of those customers using them at least once per month. That's a modest improvement on the same metrics from a year earlier, which were also up from mid-2024 levels. If nothing else, the company is proving it can still win and keep customers, even if not at a heroic pace. From here, it's just a matter of figuring out how to enhance the numbers, which its transformation plan is doing. Just be sure to keep your expectations in check. Before you buy stock in PayPal, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and PayPal wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $379,986!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,404,152!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 948% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 215% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of October 15, 2026. James Brumley has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Apple, and PayPal. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: short December 2026 $62.50 calls on PayPal. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Is PayPal Stock a Buy at Less Than 10 Times Next Year's Earnings Guidance? was originally published by The Motley Fool

PayPal Holdings has seen its share price move around in recent years, yet the real question for you today is whether the current US$56.17 level is supported by the earnings the business is generating. With the stock posting mixed returns over different time frames, the focus naturally shifts to what those profits say about where the valuation sits now. - The share price has fallen 79.1% over the past 5 years, which puts the spotlight firmly on whether the earnings profile justifies where the stock now trades. - The core payments model can influence how consistently PayPal converts transaction volume into profit, which matters for how much investors may be prepared to pay for each dollar of earnings. - Your read on PayPal Holdings is one view; the desks covering it have another. See what analysts think PayPal Holdings's shares could be worth. The stock's next move may depend on whether PayPal's current earnings are strong enough to make today's price look sensible. If you want to stress test whether PayPal Holdings' earnings based valuation debate holds up elsewhere, line it up against 32 high quality undervalued stocks. The P/E ratio suits PayPal Holdings because earnings are a key lens for a mature payments platform. On this measure, the stock trades on about 9.8x, comfortably below the diversified financial industry average of roughly 17.1x and far under the peer group sitting near 51.5x. That gap indicates the market is currently paying a much lower price for each dollar of PayPal earnings than it is for many comparable businesses. The fair multiple implied by the valuation model, which blends the company's profitability profile, risk, size and sector, comes out higher than where the current P/E sits. That suggests PayPal may be undervalued on this earnings yardstick, assuming the underlying profit stream holds up. For any investor weighing the stock, the key question is whether the quality and durability of those earnings justify the market discount that the 9.8x P/E currently reflects. Explore the numbers behind PayPal Holdings's P/E valuation. Narratives pick up where the PayPal Holdings' valuation puzzle leaves off. They spell out which future paths for growth, margins and earnings would need to hold for the stock to look meaningfully cheaper or more expensive than today's price, and each one presents fair value as a thesis about the business that you can track over time rather than as a single frozen snapshot. These are available on Simply Wall St's Community page. Community views on PayPal are split between those who see an asset light cash engine and those who focus on pressure in the transaction model. Bull case: 32% undervalued "By remaining a fintech, PayPal retains the flexibility to return that excess capital to you, the shareholder, through its aggressive buyback program…" Discover why this Narrative puts PayPal Holdings at 32% undervalued. Bear case: 47% overvalued "The 7 basis point decline in the overall transaction take rate to 1.61% in Q2 2026 suggests that faster growth in these lower take rate flows could dilute transaction margin dollars if monetization lags usage…" Explore why this Narrative puts PayPal Holdings at 47% overvalued. Price today is only part of the story. Analyst projections for where this business might be a few years from now give you a separate yardstick to compare with the current multiple. Explore where analysts expect PayPal Holdings to be in a few years. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Companies discussed in this article include PYPL. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email [email protected]

PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) was down 6.6% year-to-date after closing at $54.61 on October 6. With a market capitalization of $44.9 billion, the stock has performed even worse over the last 52 weeks with a change of negative 27.1%. However, the last six months represented a purple patch as PayPal gained 17.8%, compared to 33.88% for Insider Monkey Billionaire Index and 18.18% for S&P 500 ETF (SPY). Market has clearly turned its back on PayPal at a time when the broader market had rallied. The company is carrying out its multi-year restructuring and turnaround plan under the leadership of CEO, Enrique Lores. The management aims to leverage more of AI capabilities and further advance its own technological foundation. Additionally, the restructuring efforts would enable PayPal to become more effective in its marketing spending. So how does a more streamlined approach help PayPal in prioritizing segments with higher growth potential? Denys Prykhodov / Shutterstock.com The underlying valuation metrics explain PayPal's lackluster performance over the last 12 months. The stock currently trades at a trailing P/E multiple of 9.93x. Compared to that, the forward metric sits at 9.07x, which does not show a big gap. The low earnings multiples suggest investors remain skeptical about PayPal's growth prospects, although the relatively small gap between trailing and forward P/E ratios is not, by itself, evidence of that skepticism. In isolation, these figures might suggest undervaluation of a business of this scale, with not too many doubts about its current profitability. But investors need to look beyond that. Short interest in the stock shows little evidence of any aggressive bearish bets. A 3.84% short float indicates limited skepticism within the investor base. The short ratio sits modestly at 2.38. PayPal ranked third on our list of the 15 Best Cheap Stocks to Buy for 2026. See which two stocks ranked higher. Operational profitability measures support a more encouraging view of the business. Over the last twelve months, operating margin stood at 16.9% and the company delivered 14.4% in net margin. These allowed for a solid 24.5% return on equity during the stated period, after the company posted $34.13 billion in cumulative revenues. Cash generation is also a bright spot. Operating cash flow came in at $7.47 billion during the last twelve months, and levered free cash flow reached $4.42 billion. With a $44.9 billion market cap, free cash flow yield turns out to be around 10%. With that backdrop, it will be interesting to see if PayPal's economic moat is widening or narrowing? However, the major concern is the topline growth which remains modest. During the second quarter of fiscal 2026, PayPal generated 4.8% year-over-year revenue growth, which offers a likely explanation of why the market is reluctant to assign a higher multiple. PayPal's GAAP operating margin also contracted 171 basis points to 16.4%, highlighting continued pressure on profitability despite revenue growth. Data tracked across 1,000+ hedge funds by Insider Monkey still shows significant amount of institutional interest in the stock. This is despite a drop in the number of hedge funds holding positions. As per 13F filings, hedge fund ownership declined from 76 funds in Q1 2026 to 60 funds in the following quarter. BlackRock is the largest institutional stakeholder in the company, as per Yahoo Finance database, holding 74.97 million shares. This translates into 8.76% ownership in the company. Other notable stakeholders include Vanguard Capital Management and State Street with 6.27% and 4.82% ownerships, respectively. The overall investment case for PayPal hinges on how the company can deliver revenue growth beyond mid-single digits. Current metrics point to a highly profitable, cash-rich business being valued by the market as if its growth has stalled. PayPal's low valuation suggests a potential bargain rather than an outright value trap, but without stronger revenue growth and sustained margin improvement, the stock could remain cheap. While we acknowledge the risk and potential of PYPL as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than PYPL and that has 10,000% upside potential, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock. READ NEXT: United Natural Foods' (UNFI) Path to Profitability–What Lies Ahead and What American Eagle's (AEO) Q2 Numbers Say Beyond the Tariff Refund Boost. Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News.

San Jose, California-based PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) operates a technology platform that enables digital payments on behalf of merchants and consumers. Valued at $47 billion by market cap, the company offers online payment solutions worldwide. The fintech giant is expected to announce its fiscal third-quarter earnings for 2026 before the market opens on Tuesday, Oct. 27. Ahead of the event, analysts expect PayPal Holdings to report a profit of $1.32 per share on a diluted basis, down 1.5% from $1.34 per share in the year-ago quarter. The company beat the consensus estimates in three of the last four quarters while missing the forecast on another occasion. - Novo Nordisk's CEO Was Asked Why His Stock Keeps Falling on Good News: 'The Stock Market Is Always Right, but With a Bit of a Time Difference' - Dear UnitedHealth Stock Fans, Mark Your Calendars for October 13 - How Google Stock Investors Should View the Long-Awaited Gemini 4 Argon Launch - Our exclusive Barchart Brief newsletter is your FREE midday guide to what's moving stocks, sectors, and investor sentiment - delivered right when you need the info most. Subscribe today! For the full year, analysts expect PayPal Holdings to report EPS of $5.38, up 1.3% from $5.31 in fiscal 2025. Its EPS is expected to rise 7.8% year over year to $5.80 in fiscal 2027. PYPL stock has notably underperformed the S&P 500 Index's ($SPX) 15% gains over the past 52 weeks, with shares down 27.7% during this period. Similarly, it underperformed the State Street Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF's (XLF) 1.4% returns over the same time frame. PYPL has underperformed the broader market primarily due to intense competition from tech giants like Apple Inc.'s (AAPL) Apple Pay and Alphabet Inc.'s (GOOG) Google Pay, alongside a margin-squeezing product mix shift where growth is driven more by lower-margin unbranded processing rather than its highly profitable core branded checkout. This margin compression, paired with decelerating single-digit revenue growth, active account stagnation, and leadership transitions, has led Wall Street to re-evaluate PYPL as a mature payment processor rather than a high-growth tech platform. On Jul. 28, PYPL shares closed up more than 4% after reporting its Q2 results. Its revenue stood at $8.7 billion, up 4.8% year over year. The company's adjusted EPS declined 1.4% from the year-ago quarter to $1.38. Analysts' consensus opinion on PYPL stock is cautious, with a "Hold" rating overall. Out of 46 analysts covering the stock, four advise a "Strong Buy" rating, two suggest a "Moderate Buy," 36 give a "Hold," one advocates a "Moderate Sell," and three recommend a "Strong Sell." PYPL's average analyst price target is $55.89, indicating a potential upside of 1.6% from the current levels. On the date of publication, Neha Panjwani did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on Barchart.com

Earnings results often indicate what direction a company will take in the months ahead. With Q2 behind us, let's have a look at Synchrony Financial (NYSE:SYF) and its peers. Credit card companies facilitate electronic payments and extend revolving credit to consumers. Growth comes from increasing digital payment adoption, cross-border transaction growth, and value-added services for cardholders and merchants. Challenges include regulatory scrutiny of fees and practices, competition from alternative payment methods, and potential credit losses during economic downturns. The 6 credit card stocks we track reported a strong Q2. As a group, revenues were in line with analysts' consensus estimates. While some credit card stocks have fared somewhat better than others, they have collectively declined. On average, share prices are down 3.2% since the latest earnings results. Powering over 73 million active accounts and partnerships with major brands like Amazon, PayPal, and Lowe's, Synchrony Financial (NYSE:SYF) provides credit cards, installment loans, and banking products through partnerships with retailers, healthcare providers, and digital platforms. Synchrony Financial reported revenues of $3.72 billion, up 1.9% year on year. This print fell short of analysts' expectations by 0.7%, but it was still a very strong quarter for the company with a beat of analysts' EPS and efficiency ratio estimates. Synchrony Financial delivered the slowest revenue growth in the group. Investor expectations, however, were likely higher than Wall Street's published projections, leaving some wishing for even better results (analysts' consensus estimates are those published by big banks and advisory firms, not the investors who make buy and sell decisions). The stock is down 2% since reporting and currently trades at $71.93. We think Synchrony Financial is a good business, but is it a buy today? Read our full report here, it's free. Formerly known as Alliance Data Systems until its 2022 rebranding, Bread Financial (NYSE:BFH) provides credit cards, installment loans, and savings products to consumers while powering branded payment solutions for retailers and merchants. Bread Financial reported revenues of $993 million, up 6.9% year on year, outperforming analysts' expectations by 3.5%. The business had an exceptional quarter with a beat of analysts' EPS estimates and net interest income in line with analysts' estimates. Bread Financial delivered the biggest analyst estimate beat among its peers. Although it had a fine quarter compared to its peers, the market seems unhappy with the results as the stock is down 4.2% since reporting. It currently trades at $97.63. Is now the time to buy Bread Financial? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it's free. Recognizable by its iconic green logo and the slogan "Don't leave home without it," American Express (NYSE:AXP) is a global payments company that issues credit and charge cards, processes merchant transactions, and offers travel and lifestyle benefits to consumers and businesses. American Express reported revenues of $18.55 billion, up 12.8% year on year, falling short of analysts' expectations by 5.8%. It was a softer quarter, leaving some shareholders looking for more. American Express delivered the weakest performance against analyst estimates of the whole group. As expected, the stock is down 10.7% since the results and currently trades at $304.51. Read our full analysis of American Express's results here. Recognizable by its iconic "Priceless" advertising campaign that has run in over 120 countries, Mastercard (NYSE:MA) operates a global payments network that connects consumers, financial institutions, merchants, and businesses, enabling electronic transactions and providing payment solutions. Mastercard reported revenues of $9.28 billion, up 14.1% year on year. This result topped analysts' expectations by 2.2%. It was a strong quarter as it also recorded a solid beat of analysts' EBITDA estimates and a beat of analysts' EPS estimates. The stock is up 1.2% since reporting and currently trades at $570.12. Read our full, actionable report on Mastercard here, it's free. Starting as a credit card company in 1988 before expanding into a full-service bank, Capital One (NYSE:COF) is a financial services company that offers credit cards, auto loans, banking services, and commercial lending to consumers and businesses. Capital One reported revenues of $15.83 billion, up 25.8% year on year. This number met analysts' expectations. It was a very strong quarter as it also logged a beat of analysts' EPS estimates. Capital One delivered the fastest revenue growth in the group. The stock is down 5% since reporting and currently trades at $195.91. Read our full, actionable report on Capital One here, it's free. Over the past year, investors have been forced to repeatedly answer the same question: what is the market's biggest risk? The answer has changed several times, and each shift has reshaped market leadership. Late in 2025 and early 2026, artificial intelligence became the market's primary uncertainty. Investors questioned whether AI would erode software pricing power and weaken competitive moats as AI made it easier to replicate once-differentiated products. By the spring, technology took a back seat to geopolitics. The U.S. conflict with Iran briefly became the market's dominant narrative, raising concerns about oil prices, inflation, and global growth. But as energy markets remained orderly and fears of a prolonged supply disruption faded, investors quickly turned their focus back to fundamentals. Want to invest in winners with rock-solid fundamentals? Check out our Top 5 Quality Compounder Stocks and add them to your watchlist. These companies are poised for growth regardless of the political or macroeconomic climate.

Financial technology companies are set to report mixed quarterly results, with Visa (V) and Fiserv (FISV) expected to beat earnings estimates as Mastercard (MA) and PayPal (PYPL) report in-line financials, Oppenheimer said in a note Thursday. Visa will likely post fiscal fourth quarter non-GAAP earnings per share of $3.46 compared to consensus of $3.44 while Fiserv's EPS is expected to fall 16% year over year to $1.72, $0.01 above Wall Street's estimate, according to the note. The brokerage models Mastercard's and PayPal's non-GAAP EPS in line with analysts' expectations of $5.15 and $1.31, respectively. For Block (XYZ), Oppenheimer projects third-quarter gross profit to rise 20% year over year to $3.19 billion, above consensus of $3.15 billion. Corpay (CPAY) will likely post EPS of $7.26, beating the Street estimate of $7.18. The firm expects Affirm (AFRM) to post diluted EPS of $0.33, missing analysts' estimate of $0.37. Global Payments (GPN) and Western Union's (WU) EPS will match consensus expectations, the note showed. "We continue to favor Visa, Mastercard, Block, Affirm, and Toast (TOST) given their strong competitive moats, exposure to secular growth trends, and attractive growth profiles," Oppenheimer analysts, including Rayna Kumar, said. Visa and Mastercard will outperform the revenue consensus driven by growth in volumes, while PayPal will miss Wall Street's projections due to a lower transaction take rate, Oppenheimer added. The brokerage models Visa's fiscal fourth-quarter revenue at $12.16 billion, above the Street's $12.09 billion estimate, and expects Mastercard's revenue to reach $9.61 billion, slightly exceeding consensus of $9.58 billion. Meanwhile, PayPal's third-quarter revenue is projected at $8.68 billion, below the $8.72 billion Street expectation. Additionally, Oppenheimer expects revenue for Fiserv and Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) to match Street consensus, while Shift4 Payments (FOUR) and Western Union (WU) are modeled to fall short of analysts' projections. The brokerage upgraded its rating on Global Payments' stock to outperform from perform with a $115 price target, citing a derisked 2026 earnings outlook, potential free cash flow acceleration in 2027, and stable consumer spending trends supporting mid-single-digit revenue growth. Oppenheimer downgraded its rating on Fiserv's shares to perform from outperform due to ongoing uncertainty around future sales and earnings growth. "Given the company's execution missteps and repeated estimate revisions over the past two years, we remain somewhat cautious on the degree of acceleration embedded in the outlook," the firm said.

PayPal Holdings has seen its share price fall sharply over the past few years, even as new partnerships put the company back in the headlines. With the stock around US$53.89, the question for investors is whether that price is adequately backed by the earnings the business is generating today. - PayPal shares have declined 79.4% over the past 5 years, which puts the focus squarely on whether the current earnings profile supports where the stock now trades. - Fresh tie ups with Meta on AI driven commerce and checkout may support expectations for how quickly PayPal can translate its user base and transaction volumes into future profit streams. - Your read on PayPal Holdings is one view; the desks covering it have another. See what analysts think PayPal Holdings's shares could be worth. The issue now is whether PayPal's current earnings, and what investors infer from them, are enough to justify today's share price. If you are weighing whether PayPal Holdings' earnings justify its current valuation, it can help to compare that question across a wider field of 32 high quality undervalued stocks. The P/E ratio is a useful yardstick for PayPal Holdings because earnings remain a central driver of how investors frame its potential. PayPal currently trades on a P/E of 9.4x, which is well below the diversified financial industry average of about 16.6x and far under the peer group around 50.3x. That gap indicates the market is pricing each dollar of PayPal earnings at a lower level than many comparable platforms, despite the scale of its payments network. The tailored fair multiple that blends PayPal's growth profile, profitability, sector, size and risk points to a higher P/E than where the stock trades today. This suggests the shares screen as undervalued on this metric. Despite the recent Meta partnership and acquisition chatter lifting attention on the story again, the current 9.4x P/E still sits below what this model indicates could be justified by the company's earnings power. Explore the numbers behind PayPal Holdings's P/E valuation. Simply Wall St Narratives pick up where PayPal Holdings' valuation puzzle leaves off by explaining what kind of future growth, profitability and earnings profile would need to occur for the stock to be worth far more, or far less, than it is today on the market. Rather than relying on a single multiple or model result, each scenario lays out the assumptions that form its view of fair value so you can compare those inputs with PayPal Holdings' actual results as they are reported. One of the top community narratives on PayPal Holdings: 34% undervalued "By remaining a fintech, PayPal retains the flexibility to return that excess capital to you, the shareholder, through its aggressive buyback program…" Discover why this Narrative puts PayPal Holdings at 34% undervalued. Price tells you what the market thinks today, but the projections from professional analysts show where they expect this business to be a few years from now, which can sharpen how you read the current multiple. Explore where analysts expect PayPal Holdings to be in a few years. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Companies discussed in this article include PYPL. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email [email protected]

PYPL closed at $52.71 on September 16, 2026, almost exactly where it traded before takeover speculation began. The Advent-Stripe consortium’s roughly $53 billion bid collapsed on August 27-28, and the stock has since recovered nearly all of that drop. Free cash flow margin rebounded to 20.44% in the second quarter of 2026 from a 10.81% trough in the first quarter, the clearest sign yet that PayPal’s cost-savings program is starting to show up in cash generation. Buy ratings have fallen from 16 to 4 over the past fifteen months while Holds climbed from 21 to 33, even as Street’s mean price target rose after the deal died, a structural erosion that predates and outlasts the M&A headlines. At the September 9 Goldman Sachs conference, CEO Enrique Lores guided third-quarter branded checkout down to a 1-2% range, citing a bigger and longer-lasting European tariff hit than management had modeled just six weeks earlier, which is why NTM P/E still sits at 9.50x against a three-year mean of 12.67x. When Bloomberg reported on August 27 that Advent International and Stripe had walked away from their $60.50-per-share offer, PYPL fell about 13% in a single session. Six weeks later, the stock has mostly closed the gap. It closed at $52.71 on September 16, versus $43.18 at the end of June, before the bid speculation had even peaked, and versus $61.47 the night before the collapse hit the tape. Street’s own numbers tell a similar story. The mean price target actually rose after the deal died, from $51.57 on June 30 to $57.07 by September 16, and the target-to-price ratio compressed from 119.4% to 108.3%. That compression is not analysts turning bearish. It is the stock catching up to where analysts already thought it belonged. If the collapse of a $53 billion buyout was supposed to strip out a speculative premium and leave the shares cheaper on fundamentals, the price action says that premium was smaller, and shorter-lived, than the initial 13% drop implied. What has not recovered is conviction. Buy ratings have fallen in a straight line for well over a year, from 16 in June 2025 to just 4 now, while Holds rose from 21 to 33 over the same stretch. That decline started long before Stripe and Advent ever approached PayPal in April 2026. It is a slower, structural story about the Street losing patience with PayPal’s core business, and the deal saga was mostly a distraction from it. The more interesting development sits in the cash-flow statement rather than the deal headlines. Free cash flow fell to a first-quarter 2026 low of $0.90 billion, a 10.81% margin, its weakest showing in the past two years. By the second quarter it recovered to $1.78 billion and a 20.44% margin, close to the 25.24% margin PayPal posted back in the fourth quarter of 2025. That rebound lines up with what management described on the Q2 call: a $1.5 billion-plus, multiyear cost-savings program, with roughly $400 million of run-rate savings already identified for this year and organizational layers removed as of the summer. CFO Jamie Miller was explicit that savings are meant to self-fund reinvestment into Venmo, Braintree, and financial services rather than requiring fresh spending. A margin move from 10.81% to 20.44% in a single quarter is early evidence the mechanism is working, though it is still short of the 25%-plus margins PayPal generated as recently as last December, and management itself says savings become “more meaningful” only in the fourth quarter. The reason Street’s ratings keep drifting toward Hold despite improving cash generation is sitting in the guidance itself. On the Q2 2026 earnings call, management described branded checkout as stabilizing at 2% currency-neutral growth for a second consecutive quarter and raised full-year guidance on the strength of it. Six weeks later, at the Goldman conference, Lores walked that back: European cross-border volume, much of it China-linked, took a tariff and de-minimis hit that ran between 0.5 and 1 point worse than modeled, and for longer than expected. Third-quarter branded checkout is now guided to a 1-2% range instead of a clean 2%. This is not the first time PayPal has offered a version of “checkout is stabilizing,” only for a new headwind, first Apple Pay and Google Pay encroachment, then general macro softness, now tariffs, to reset the goalposts. Financial services, Buy Now Pay Later, Venmo, and Braintree are genuinely growing in the double digits and mid-teens, and diversification away from checkout is a real strategic shift. But checkout still anchors the branded network both of those businesses lean on, and a market that has watched this stabilization narrative repeat itself has good reason to wait for two or three clean quarters before moving ratings back to Buy. At 9.50x NTM normalized earnings, PayPal trades well below its three-year mean of 12.67x and closer to the 7.31x low it touched in early 2026 than to anything resembling a growth multiple. That is not a post-collapse anomaly. The multiple was already compressed through most of 2025 and only briefly touched 11x during the height of takeover speculation this spring, before settling back near current levels once the deal died. The market was never pricing PYPL as an acquisition target for long, and it is not pricing it as an operational turnaround story either. It is pricing a company whose cost discipline is real but unproven at scale, sitting behind a checkout business that keeps needing a new excuse. The next real test is the October Q3 report. If free cash flow margin continues climbing back toward the 25% PayPal generated last December, and if branded checkout holds the 1-2% range rather than sliding toward the low end again, the setup for a multiple re-rating gets meaningfully better. If checkout disappoints again, or the promised fourth-quarter savings do not show up in margin, 9.50x will look less like a value opportunity and more like a business the Street has correctly priced as stuck. The only way to really know is to look at the numbers yourself. TIKR gives you free access to the same institutional-quality financial data that professional analysts use to answer exactly that question. Pull up PYPL stock and you’ll see years of historical financials, what Wall Street analysts expect for revenue and earnings in the quarters ahead, how valuation multiples have moved over time, and whether price targets are trending up or down. You can build a free watchlist to track PayPal Holdings, Inc. alongside every other stock on your radar. No credit card required. Just the data you need to decide for yourself.

AFRM fell 4% Monday as fast money unwound its post-earnings spike, despite Q4 GMV surging 36% and revenue rising 33% to $1.17 billion. AFRM's 36% GMV growth far outpaces peers like PYPL, but that growth premium drives outsized single-session volatility when fast money exits positions. Max Levchin cited inflation fueling demand, backed by fiscal 2027 guidance for GMV above $64 billion and adjusted operating margin above 30%. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Affirm didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Shares of Affirm Holdings (NASDAQ:AFRM) are unwinding a sharp post-earnings rally to open the week, handing back much of the gain built on Thursday's fiscal fourth-quarter report. The move is more about positioning than any fresh news out of the company, which announced nothing today. Affirm stock is down 4% to $74.51 in Monday morning trading, extending the drift lower that began in Friday's afternoon session. Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) is down 0.52% to $764.36, a soft session for the broad market that puts Affirm's decline in sharp relief. The context matters here. Affirm stock was up 4% year to date through Friday's close, a figure that masks a huge intraweek swing. Friday saw the stock rally to an 11-month high, climbing 13% at its peak before paring most of that gain into the close. Profit taking after a large prior run is the cleanest read. Affirm reported its fiscal fourth quarter Thursday, August 27, for the fiscal fourth quarter ended June 30, and the results beat on both revenue and volume. Affirm's revenue rose 33% to $1.17 billion, against a $1.11 billion analyst estimate, while gross merchandise volume, the total dollar value of transactions processed on the platform, rose 36% to $14.1 billion, against a $13.39 billion estimate. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Affirm didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Affirm's profitability inflected, as well. Adjusted operating income reached $353 million, a 30% adjusted operating margin, and GAAP operating income came in at $147 million, a 12.6% GAAP operating margin, up six percentage points from a year earlier. Active consumers grew 21% to 27.8 million, and transactions per active consumer rose 20% to 7. The card story continued to compound. The Affirm Card business reached 5.2 million active consumers, up 125% from the prior year. Affirm's credit quality also improved, with the 30-day delinquency rate on monthly installment loans, excluding Peloton and Pay in X loans, coming in at 2.5%, an improvement from the 2.7% to 2.8% range in each of the previous three quarters. The gap between the results and Monday's reaction is the useful observation. A 4% decline in Affirm shares against a broad market down 0.4% is a far larger move than the broad market explains, which points to positioning in the stock rather than to anything in the results or in the wider market. Friday's session tells the same story from the other side. Affirm shares spiked toward an 11-month high intraday before rolling over, a signal that fast money used the report to sell strength rather than to build new positions. With no company-specific catalyst today, the unwind is just extending that same pattern. CEO Max Levchin framed the demand backdrop on the call: "In times of inflation, we see more demand because folks are budgeting. They're more thoughtful about how they want to use the money, and we're there to help." Affirm's guidance backed that up. For fiscal 2027, the company guided to gross merchandise volume above $64 billion and an adjusted operating margin above 30.5%. Affirm sits in the installment-payments space alongside PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ:PYPL), though the two run very different growth profiles. Affirm printed 36% GMV growth in the quarter, a pace that puts it in a different bucket from the slower-growing large-cap payment platforms it's often compared against. That growth premium is exactly why single-session volatility runs so hot in Affirm shares. When a fintech name trades on multiples of forward revenue and forward operating income, small changes in positioning move the price far more than similar flows would move a mature payments stock. Monday's selling is consistent with fast-money profit taking rather than any change in the underlying franchise. Position sizing is crucial here. A name that can spike 13% and give it back inside two sessions carries more single-session volatility than Affirm's fundamentals suggest, so investors should consider keeping their position sizes moderate while the gap between the results and the share price stays unresolved. Traders should watch for signs of stabilization in Affirm shares near pre-earnings levels, along with any sell-side revisions catching up to Thursday's raised fiscal 2027 outlook. The read on today's move is technical rather than fundamental in nature. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Affirm didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

PayPal lost 15% as Stripe and Advent abandoned their $50B bid, while Affirm surged 13% on record profits and a new Shopify Australia deal. Klarna jumped 5% on consolidation relief, but XLF's flat close signals these are name-specific moves, not a financials sector rotation. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and PayPal didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Two of the biggest names in digital payments are ripping in opposite directions Friday morning, with the buy-now-pay-later cluster trading on unrelated single-name catalysts rather than a common thread. The broader financials sector is barely moving, which reinforces that this is a name-specific event and not a sector rotation. PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ:PYPL) stock is down 15% to $52.45 in early Friday trading after Bloomberg reported that Stripe and Advent International walked away from an acquisition of PayPal that had been valued at more than $50 billion. Meanwhile, Affirm Holdings (NASDAQ:AFRM) stock is up 13% to $87.56, a mirror-image move as investors reassess a competitive landscape that briefly looked like it might feature a Stripe-owned PayPal. Across the rest of the cluster, Klarna (NYSE:KLAR) stock is up 5% to $14.65 and Sezzle (NASDAQ:SEZL) stock is up 2% to $128.70, while the Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF (NYSEARCA:XLF) sits at $57.90 and is practically unchanged. The dispersion inside the buy-now-pay-later group tells you the cluster isn't trading as a bloc. Bloomberg first reported Stripe's interest in PayPal in February, and The Wall Street Journal reported in August that PayPal had found the initial bid insufficient and that the two sides were negotiating a higher price. Stripe and Advent are both privately held, so the withdrawal removes an obvious buyer without introducing any new public competitor. The takeover overhang that had lifted PayPal stock for months is gone. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and PayPal didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. PayPal stock had risen more than 40% this quarter on a combination of a second-quarter earnings beat and takeover speculation, and one of those two supports has now disappeared. PayPal stock carries a market cap of roughly $52.59 billion, close to the offer that was just withdrawn, which is what makes today's air pocket feel especially sharp. The underlying business hasn't changed: PayPal's Q2 2026 report showed non-GAAP EPS of $1.38 versus $1.2776 expected, revenue of $8.68 billion, and total payment volume of $486.45 billion, up 10%. Affirm reported fiscal fourth quarter 2026 results after Thursday's close, covering the quarter ended June 30, 2026. CEO Max Levchin described the period as "our most profitable quarter ever, even without the tax allowance release" and stated that "the company is thriving and the core business is firing on all business." Affirm also promoted Michael Linford to president, a signal that management sees the growth runway extending well beyond the current quarter. Additionally, Affirm and Shopify (NASDAQ:SHOP) announced Thursday afternoon the launch of Shop Pay Installments in Australia, powered exclusively by Affirm, marking Affirm's return to the Australian market. Shopify is a payments and commerce heavyweight, and exclusive distribution through Shop Pay is the kind of channel that peer BNPL names would struggle to replicate. The vanishing threat of a Stripe-controlled PayPal only sharpens Affirm's competitive setup heading into the holiday season. Klarna stock and Sezzle stock are both green, but neither is riding the Affirm move dollar-for-dollar. Klarna is drifting higher on relief that the biggest checkout-brand consolidation scenario is off the table for now, while Sezzle is barely participating despite operating in the same lane. Same category, different price action. The Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF sitting essentially unmoved is the tell that this isn't a sector event. Payment fintechs live inside financials for index purposes, but XLF's flat move confirms banks, insurers, and diversified financials aren't reacting. Investors sizing their exposure around today's headlines can treat these moves as idiosyncratic rather than thematic. Traders can watch for whether PayPal stock finds a floor near its pre-speculation level from earlier in the quarter, since that reference frames how much of the recent rally was fundamentals versus takeover premium. Shareholders may want to keep an eye on whether Affirm's Shopify Australia rollout produces early volume disclosures over the next few quarters. Position sizing matters more than usual on days like this. Investors chasing Affirm stock at a 13% higher price should size their exposure to survive a mean-revert session, and anyone bottom-fishing PayPal stock should scale in rather than commit full size into a name that just lost its most obvious near-term catalyst. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and PayPal didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.