PYPL

Morgan Stanley and BlackRock reported strong quarterly results, once again exceeding Wall Street expectations like their peers that reported on Tuesday. Memory-chip makers, however, lagged the broader market's climb amid profit-taking following a strong run-up tied to expectations of AI demand. Crude oil prices continued to climb and stayed above $80 per barrel levels as the U.S. continued its attacks on Iran. U.S. stock futures were mixed in the overnight session late Wednesday, as a lower-than-expected wholesale inflation reading, coupled with record banking results, boosted investor sentiment, even as weakness in the semiconductor sector weighed on technology stocks. Dow futures were up 0.01%, S&P 500 futures climbed 0.01%, while Nasdaq-100 futures fell 0.17% at 9:03 PM EDT. See what 10M+ investors are talking about. Get the Stocktwits Daily Rip for what retail is watching right now, free to your inbox Among ETFs tracking benchmark indexes, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) and the Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) were trading lower at the time of writing, while the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) edged higher. The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) was down 0.05% amid ‘extremely bearish’ sentiment. All three benchmark indexes closed higher on Wednesday amid a growing risk appetite driven by lower inflation and strong bank earnings. The Nasdaq added nearly 160 points, closing up 0.62%. The S&P 500 was up 0.38%, while the Dow closed 0.29% higher. June’s Producer Price Index (PPI) declined 0.3% from the previous month, marking its steepest drop in more than a year and coming in below expectations. On an annual basis, producer prices increased 5.5%, also below forecasts. The lower wholesale inflation came a day after the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) for June was also lower than expected. Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Economic Advisor at Allianz, said in a post on X on Wednesday, noting the decline in CPI and PPI: “These much better-than-expected figures are set to boost equities and further temper market expectations for upcoming interest rate hikes.” Meanwhile, two banks, Morgan Stanley (MS) and BlackRock (BLK), reported quarterly results, once again exceeding Wall Street expectations like their peers Goldman Sachs (GS), Bank of America (BAC) and others that also reported strong results on Tuesday. Among financial stocks, PayPal Holdings Inc. (PYPL) wa...

The Nasdaq Composite (NASDAQINDEX:^IXIC) rose 0.62% to 26,269 as technology buyers focused on artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, the S&P 500 (SNPINDEX:^GSPC) gained 0.38% to 7,572 on cooler inflation data, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES:^DJI) added 0.29% to 52,659 amid a positive start to the quarterly earnings season. Gold prices fell 0.05% to $4,060.78 as of U.S. market close, while the 10-Year Treasury yield decreased 0.03% to 4.55%. Communication stocks gained 2.69% to lead the market, while technology and industrials both dropped 0.25%. Memory chip stocks dropped as sector volatility continued. Lucid Group jumped 29% after the electric vehicle maker denied bankruptcy rumors, while PayPal Holdings surged following reports of a potential Stripe acquisition bid. Space Exploration Technologies fell for a fourth straight session, and Johnson & Johnson slipped, despite raising its full-year guidance. BlackRock gained on strong earnings. A combination of strong earnings and further positive inflation data buoyed markets today. U.S. producer prices fell in June, another indication that price increases are slowing, which makes an interest rate hike this year less likely. However, as tensions ratchet upwards in the Middle East and oil prices surge, the inflation reprieve could be temporary. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway warned that the current market is increasingly speculative, saying that many people were “gambling” rather than investing for the long-term. That concern is mirrored by technical signals showing that margin debt — investing using borrowed funds — has surged 40% over the last year. Historically, similar levels of margin have preceded significant declines. For investors wondering how to navigate this market, the key is not to chase short-term rewards. Don’t make any dramatic moves, but check you are comfortable with your exposure to riskier stocks and consider shifting to a more cautious stance. Before you buy stock in Invesco QQQ Trust, 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 Invesco QQQ Trust 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...

The S&P 500 ended 0.35% higher, while the Nasdaq 100 fell 0.62% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.26%. Brent crude held near $85.80 after rising on renewed concerns about the Strait of Hormuz ship blockade amid U.S.-Iran tensions. PYPL surged sharply on reports of a potential $53+ billion take-private offer from Stripe and Advent International at a significant premium. U.S. stock indices ended modestly higher on Wednesday as cooler-than-expected producer prices contributed to hopes for easing inflation, and solid earnings from big banks and chipmaking equipment maker ASML offset a sell-off in memory stocks. The S&P 500 ended 0.35% higher, while the Nasdaq 100 fell 0.62% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.26%. The Russell 2000, which tracks stocks with small market capitalizations, increased 0.39%. See what 10M+ investors are talking about. Get the Stocktwits Daily Rip for what retail is watching right now, free to your inbox Among ETFs tracking benchmark indexes, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) rose 0.4% and Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) ended Wednesday around 0.27% lower, while the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) added 0.24%. Meanwhile, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) lost 1.59%, while the broader Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT) slipped about 0.52%, though big tech names Alphabet (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon.com (AMZN), Meta (META) and Apple (AAPL) rallied over 2.5%, owing to significant selling in memory chip and semiconductor stocks. Retail sentiment on Stocktwits for SPY, QQQ, and DIA stayed within 'bullish' zones, coupled with ‘normal’ message volumes. The Producer Price Index for June fell 0.3% month-over-month — the largest decline in over a year — versus expectations for flat readings. Year-over-year, PPI rose 5.5%, below forecasts. The drop was led by goods prices, particularly energy. This followed Tuesday’s soft CPI and gave markets further comfort that inflation pressures are moderating, supporting the “soft landing” view and tempering aggressive rate-hike pricing. Earnings season delivered clear positives in financials. Morgan Stanley and BlackRock posted strong beats, with BlackRock’s assets under management surging past $15 trillion. Banks’ blowout results stole some spotlight from Big Tech. However, tensions in the Middle East kept oil prices elevated, which capped some of the upside. Brent crude...

PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) ranks among the best fintech stocks to buy as digital payments volume surges. On June 1, Freedom Broker reduced its price target for PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) to $60 from $100 while retaining a Buy rating on the stock. Freedom Broker analyst Mikhail Paramonov referred to the company’s first-quarter fiscal 2026 results, which were largely in line with estimates. PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) posted revenue of $8.35 billion, up 7% year-over-year, alongside a non-GAAP EPS of $1.34, up 1% year-over-year. The earnings and revenue numbers exceeded estimates by 5% and 4%, respectively. The company’s user base stayed somewhat steady, with 439 million active accounts, up 1% year-over-year, while monthly active accounts totaled 225 million. Transaction volume also came in solid, with 6.48 billion payment transactions handled during the quarter, a 7% increase over the previous year. In addition, Tencent Financial Technology announced on May 27 that US PayPal users can now use WeChat Pay’s QR-code network to make payments at businesses throughout China. According to the announcement, the service connects Tencent’s cross-border payment platform TenPay Global to PayPal World. PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) operates a technology platform that enables businesses and customers worldwide to send and receive digital payments. The company offers payment solutions under the names PayPal Credit, Hyperwallet, Venmo, PayPal, Xoom, Honey, Braintree, and Paidy. While we acknowledge the potential of PYPL as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 33 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 15 Stocks That Will Make You Rich in 10 Years Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News.

The renowned Big Short Investor Michael Burry likes unpopular stocks. That is part of the appeal. Last week, He bought more PayPal Holdings (PYPL) while the market was still worried about slower growth, tougher competition, and a messy turnaround. PayPal is still a giant in digital payments. It reaches about 200 markets and sits inside online checkout, peer-to-peer transfers, merchant tools, and cross-border payments. That gives it real scale, but it has also left investors asking whether the stock is cheap for a reason. Stocks Supported as Geopolitical Risks Recede AST SpaceMobile Shares Rise on Successful Bluebird Satellite Launches. What This Means for ASTS Stock. Stocks Sharply Higher as US-Iran Peace Deal Eases Inflation Risks 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! PYPL stock has had a rough ride. The shares are down about 45% from their 52-week high of $79.50. It has also fallen nearly 25% year to date (YTD), and it remains below both its 50-day moving average of $46 and 200-day moving average of $56. That is not a great technical setup. It says the market still wants proof, not hope. The reason is simple. Investors do not trust the growth story yet. PayPal beat first-quarter results, but the company still guided for weaker EPS ahead, and the stock sold off anyway. When a stock is this beaten down, even decent results are not enough unless the outlook starts to improve. On valuation, PayPal looks inexpensive. It trades at about 7.7 times trailing earnings, which is well below the S&P 500 financials sector’s 16.8 times P/E. It also trades at about 1.8 times sales, which is far below richer payment names like Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA), though close to lower-multiple peer Block (XYZ). In plain English, the market is not giving PayPal much credit for future growth right now. That is why Burry’s move gets attention. He tends to buy when expectations are low and the crowd is impatient. The risk is that cheap stocks can stay cheap if the business does not reaccelerate. Burry’s bet fed the old value verses growth debate. He disclosed that he opened a roughly 3.5% position in PayPal, which many traders read as a vote of confidence in a stock the market had already written off. At the time, Burry viewed PayPal’s d...

Over the past six months, Synchrony Financial’s shares (currently trading at $74.51) have posted a disappointing 11% loss, well below the S&P 500’s 10.9% gain. This was partly due to its softer quarterly results and may have investors wondering how to approach the situation. Following the pullback, is this a buying opportunity for SYF? Find out in our full research report, it’s free. 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. We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) because it highlights whether a company’s growth is profitable. Synchrony Financial’s EPS grew at 21.8% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years, higher than its 7% annualized revenue growth. This tells us the company became more profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded. We consider tangible book value per share (TBVPS) an important metric for financial firms. TBVPS represents the real, liquid net worth per share of a company, excluding intangible assets that have debatable value upon liquidation. Synchrony Financial’s TBVPS increased by 15.9% annually over the last five years, and although its annualized growth has recently decelerated to 11.3% over the last two years (from $30.36 to $37.59 per share), we still think its performance was solid. Return on equity, or ROE, quantifies financial firm profitability relative to shareholder equity — an essential capital source for these institutions. Over extended periods, superior ROE performance drives faster shareholder wealth compounding through reinvestment, share repurchases, and dividend growth. Over the last five years, Synchrony Financial has averaged an ROE of 22.2%, exceptional for a company operating in a sector where the average shakes out around 10% and those putting up 25%+ are greatly admired. This shows Synchrony Financial has a strong competitive moat. These are just a few reasons Synchrony Financial is a high-quality business worth owning. With the recent decline, the stock trades at 7.8× forward P/E (or $74.51 per share). Is now the right time to buy? See for yourself in our comprehensive research report, it’s free. WHILE YOU’RE HERE: Top 9 Market-Beating Stock...

As the Q1 earnings season comes to a close, it’s time to take stock of this quarter’s best and worst performers in the social networking industry, including Yelp (NYSE:YELP) and its peers. Businesses must meet their customers where they are, which over the past decade has come to mean on social networks. In 2020, users spent over 2.5 hours a day on social networks, a figure that has increased every year since measurement began. As a result, businesses continue to shift their advertising and marketing dollars online. The 5 social networking stocks we track reported a very strong Q1. As a group, revenues beat analysts’ consensus estimates by 3.4% while next quarter’s revenue guidance was 1% below. Amidst this news, share prices of the companies have had a rough stretch. On average, they are down 8% since the latest earnings results. Founded by PayPal alumni Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, Yelp (NYSE:YELP) is an online platform that helps people discover local businesses through crowd-sourced reviews. Yelp reported revenues of $361.5 million, flat year on year. This print exceeded analysts’ expectations by 2.2%. Overall, it was a strong quarter for the company with an impressive beat of analysts’ EBITDA and revenue estimates. “We continued to accelerate Yelp's AI transformation in the first quarter,” said Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp's co-founder and chief executive officer. Yelp delivered the slowest revenue growth of the whole 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 18.9% since reporting and currently trades at $23.11. Is now the time to buy Yelp? Access our full analysis of the earnings results here, it’s free. Founded in 2005 by two University of Virginia roommates, Reddit (NYSE:RDDT) facilitates user-generated content across niche communities (called subreddits) that discuss anything from stocks to dating and memes. Reddit reported revenues of $663.4 million, up 69.1% year on year, outperforming analysts’ expectations by 8.8%. The business had a very strong quarter with a solid beat of analysts’ EBITDA and revenue estimates. Reddit scored the biggest analyst estimate beat and fastest revenue growth am...

At just 7.6 times earnings, PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) is essentially priced like a mature utility stock. This may seem odd for a company that is generating $6 billion or more in annual free cash flow, has a loyal customer base of nearly 440 million active accounts, and is buying back stock hand over fist. To be fair, although PayPal is a very cheap stock by most metrics, there's also significant uncertainty about the company's future. In this article, we'll take a look at some of the reasons to buy PayPal, as well as some reasons investors may want to take a cautious approach. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue » As mentioned, PayPal is a highly profitable business. It generated $6.4 billion in adjusted free cash flow last year, grew adjusted EPS by 14% year over year, and reduced its outstanding share count by about 8% through aggressive buybacks. But there's a difference between cheap and "cheap for a reason," and for the time being, PayPal fits into the latter category. Earlier this year, PayPal unexpectedly removed CEO Alex Chriss after about 2.5 years at the helm, specifically citing the company's slow turnaround. While Chriss certainly had grand ambitions to make PayPal the dominant leader in payments during the AI revolution, the reality was that actual revenue growth has been minimal. For example, branded checkout volume (PayPal's core product) grew by just 2% in the first quarter. Plus, EPS is expected to decline year over year in the current quarter. New CEO Enrique Lores is known for being excellent at simplifying operations and reducing expenses, not for being an innovator. So, it's understandable that investors believe that PayPal is simply throwing in the towel on Chriss' AI-first future vision. However, I'm not so sure this is the case. So far, Lores has made moves to simplify the business, including reorganizing the company into three distinct business units. He also aims to produce $1.5 billion in cost savings within the next few years and to "aggressively deploy AI across operations and technology." Plus, Venmo's growth has been quite strong, especially with the "Pay With Venmo" initiative. The biggest unanswered question right now is whether Lores can turn things...

A month has gone by since the last earnings report for Paypal (PYPL). Shares have lost about 7.9% in that time frame, underperforming the S&P 500. Will the recent negative trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is Paypal due for a breakout? Well, first let's take a quick look at its latest earnings report in order to get a better handle on the recent drivers for PayPal Holdings, Inc. before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late. PayPal Holdings delivered a solid first quarter of 2026 with non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) of $1.34, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.27 by 5.51%. The metric increased 1% year over year. Revenues totaled $8.35 billion, surpassing the consensus mark of $8.11 billion by 2.96% and increasing 7.2% from the year-ago period. The quarter reflected broad-based momentum across the platform, highlighted by total payment volume rising 11% to $464 billion, alongside steady profitability and strong cash generation. Transaction margin dollars increased 3% year over year to $3.81 billion in the quarter. Excluding interest on customer balances, transaction margin dollars also rose 3% to $3.54 billion. The performance shows PayPal held up its margin even while continuing targeted investments across the portfolio. Transaction margin declined to 45.6% from 47.7% a year ago. However, transaction margin dollars increased year over year, reflecting an expanding profit pool, supported by scale and improving loss performance. PayPal ended the quarter with 439 million active accounts, up 1% from the year-ago period, indicating continued growth in platform reach. However, on a trailing 12-month basis, payment transactions per active account declined 1% to 58.7, reflecting softer frequency per account versus last year. Payment activity improved on an absolute basis. Total payment transactions increased 7% year over year to 6.5 billion, reflecting stronger overall activity across PayPal’s platform, even as transactions per active account edged down year over year. On a non-GAAP basis, operating income decreased 5% to $1.54 billion, and operating margin fell 229 basis points to 18.4% year over year. Non-transaction related expenses rose 8% to $2.27 billion, underscoring increased spending tied to technology and growth initiatives. Cash flow from operations was $1.13 billion and free cash flow totaled $9...

There is a certain type of investment opportunity that looks terrible on the surface, and that is precisely the point. True value is almost always hidden behind a wall of intense market pessimism. PayPal Holdings (NASDAQ: PYPL) offers that exact asymmetric profile right now. From a historic peak north of $300 per share, a relentless multi-year sell-off has stripped over 80% of its equity value, leaving the stock to linger in the low-$40s. While the market's margin anxieties are legitimate, this severe price collapse has pushed the stock into single-digit valuation territory. You rarely get a deeply discounted entry point and macroeconomic certainty at the same time, making this an ultimate asymmetric risk/reward profile. Photo by CopyrightFreePictures on Pixabay PayPal’s decline reflects a changing market narrative rather than a product failure. The stock was once priced for perfection as a dominant e-commerce network, trading at a premium that left no room for error. Current skepticism stems primarily from a shift in product mix. PayPal's unbranded processing segment, Braintree, handles back-end infrastructure for platforms like Uber (UBER) and Airbnb (ABNB). Because this white-label volume is growing much faster than the high-margin branded checkout button, consolidated transaction margins compressed from 47.7% to 45.6% year-over-year in Q1 2026. This downward pressure is visible across the digital payments landscape, where legacy networks face scale-heavy, tech-first competition. Consequently, even though PayPal’s immense volume grew raw transaction margin dollars by 3% to $3.81 billion during the quarter, Wall Street interprets the lower unit profitability as permanent erosion of the core moat. Compounding this pressure is competition from native mobile operating systems and alternative unbranded processors. Apple (AAPL)'s Apple Pay and Alphabet's (GOOGL) Google Pay leverage hardware-integrated checkout to chip away at PayPal’s mobile dominance, while platforms like Stripe and Adyen bid aggressively for high-volume merchant relationships. Ultimately, institutional funds exited the stock when active user growth flattened at 439 million accounts, leaving the company temporarily unloved by growth and value investors alike. Better than the multi-year stock chart suggests. In its Q1 2026 financial results, PayPal demonstrated that its transactional footprint...

PayPal’s first quarter results for 2026 exceeded Wall Street’s revenue and profit expectations, but the market responded negatively, reflecting investor caution around the company’s operating margin decline and ongoing transformation efforts. CEO Enrique Lores, in his first quarter leading the company, cited the need for accelerated modernization and a clearer focus on the consumer side of the business. Lores noted, “We need to recommit to the fundamentals... becoming a technology company again, sharpening our focus on consumers, aligning the company around three strong businesses and simplifying how we work.” Management also highlighted underinvestment in technology and the need for structural simplification as key challenges. Is now the time to buy PYPL? Find out in our full research report (it’s free). Revenue: $8.35 billion vs analyst estimates of $8.05 billion (7.2% year-on-year growth, 3.8% beat) Adjusted EPS: $1.34 vs analyst estimates of $1.27 (5.6% beat) Adjusted EBITDA: $2.06 billion vs analyst estimates of $1.64 billion (24.7% margin, 25.6% beat) Operating Margin: 17.8%, down from 19.6% in the same quarter last year Market Capitalization: $39.76 billion While we enjoy listening to the management's commentary, our favorite part of earnings calls are the analyst questions. Those are unscripted and can often highlight topics that management teams would rather avoid or topics where the answer is complicated. Here is what has caught our attention. Harshita Rawat (Bernstein): asked about branded checkout dynamics in Europe and the steps being taken to improve growth. CFO Jamie Miller cited macroeconomic softness and heightened competition, particularly in the U.K. and Germany, while CEO Enrique Lores stressed country-specific execution and rebalancing focus toward consumers. Timothy Chiodo (UBS): questioned the details and timeline of the $1.5 billion cost savings, especially within customer support. Miller explained the savings would come in phases, with early wins from organizational simplification and longer-term benefits from AI automation. James Faucette (Morgan Stanley): inquired about reinvestment versus capital returns, and how management will allocate savings. Lores said the company will rigorously prioritize investments based on return potential, with more detail on key performance indicators forthcoming. Darrin Peller (Wolfe Research): asked...

Last Thursday, Block XYZ, which offers financial and marketing services through its commerce ecosystem to sellers and consumers, reported impressive first-quarter 2026 results. The fintech stock reported better-than-expected adjusted earnings per share (EPS) in the quarter. Management also raised its full-year outlook following the strong start to 2026. Given the solid results and increased outlook, we intentionally waited before publishing our review to gauge whether price movements might reveal deeper sentiment trends. XYZ stock has outpaced its peers, such as PayPal Holdings, Inc. PYPL and StoneCo Ltd. STNE, while it underperformed the S&P 500 composite in the year-to-date period. PayPal and StoneCo shares have declined 22.5% and 30.7%, respectively, over the same time frame. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Let’s delve deeper and find out. On paper, Block reported strong growth in the first quarter of 2026. The company’s net revenues came in at $6.06 billion, rising 4.9% year over year. Adjusted EPS were 85 cents, reflecting a 51.8% year-over-year increase. Adjusted operating income surged 56.2% to $728 million, translating to a 25% margin. In the quarter, gross profit increased 27.1% year over year to $2.91 billion. Cash App, the crown jewel of Block’s ecosystem, posted $1.91 billion in gross profit, up 38.3% year over year, driven by growth across Cash App Borrow and Commerce Enablement (including Cash App Card and BNPL). The company highlighted that Cash App’s growth in the first quarter is being driven by deeper engagement, new features like Afterpay pre-purchase, Cash App Score, and Moneybot, plus broader lending integration across the platform. Moreover, Square reported a 9.4% gross profit increase to $982 million, driven primarily by Financial Solutions, most notably Square Loans. Block reported total gross payment volume (GPV) of $63.11 billion, up 11.1% year over year. Square GPV was $61.21 billion, up 13.2% year over year, while Cash App GPV was $1.90 billion, down from $2.70 billion in the year-ago quarter. The company continues to expect to accelerate GPV growth in 2026 compared to last year. In the first quarter of 2025, Cash App monthly actives came in at 59 million, remaining unchanged from the prior quarter. The company continues to expect low single-digit actives growth for the remainder of 2026. Bitcoin remains a meaningful part...