Topic: How To Invest

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, May 8, 2020

Article Excerpt

PAYPAL HOLDINGS INC., $144.96, Nasdaq symbol PYPL, remains a buy for aggressive investors. The company lets investors tap the fast-growing field of online transaction processing, including purchases made through the auction websites of its former parent company, eBay. The stock jumped 20% this week despite reporting lower-than-expected revenue and earnings for the first quarter of 2020. That’s because the COVID-19 lockdowns, which have sparked a big jump in e-commerce volumes, is also helping PayPal attract more users to its payment systems. In fact, the stock is now up an impressive 31% since the start of 2020. In the quarter ended March 31, 2020, PayPal’s revenue rose 11.9%, to $4.62 billion from $4.13 billion a year earlier. The consensus forecast had been for $4.72 billion. Nonetheless, the higher revenue reflects an 18.0% jump in total payment volumes. The company also ended the quarter with 325 million active users, up 17.3% from 277 million a year earlier. Despite the higher revenue, earnings before unusual items were unchanged…