High R&D protects their market share

Article Excerpt

We continue to recommend that investors diversify their Finance sector holdings beyond the major banks. Here are three non-bank firms we recommend. Their commitment to developing new products will let them keep dominating their niche markets. That cuts your risk. PAYPAL HOLDINGS INC. $71 is still a buy, but only for highly aggressive investors. The company (Nasdaq symbol PYPL; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 972.5 million; Market cap: $69.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.3; No dividends paid; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.paypal.com) processes online transactions on millions of websites, including purchases made on the sites of its former parent company eBay Inc. (Nasdaq symbol EBAY). PayPal also owns the Venmo smartphone app. It lets users transfer funds to other Venmo users by linking the app to a bank account or to a debit or credit card. In the three months ended March 31, 2025, PayPal’s revenue rose 1.2%, to $7.79 billion from $7.70 billion. That increase reflects a 2.1% rise in the number of active users…