After a dismal sales projection, PayPal shares is suffering its worst day in 20 months.
On Tuesday, PayPal shares fell the most since the beginning of the epidemic, after an earnings report in which the firm noted consumer spending worries and provided poor revenue projections for next year.
As of early afternoon in New York, the stock was down more than 11%. It’s the sharpest drop since March 16, 2020, when the expanding Covid-19 epidemic forced companies to shut and towns and states to implement lockdowns, resulting in the worst day for the US stock market since October 1987’s Black Monday.
Investors originally greeted PayPal’s third-quarter earnings announcement with enthusiasm, not because of the figures, but because of a relationship announced by the business between its Venmo payment app and Amazon. PayPal customers will be able to utilize their Venmo accounts to make purchases on Amazon.com and the Amazon mobile shopping app beginning next year.
However, that excitement dissipated immediately during the results call, when PayPal CEO Dan Schulman provided predictions for the next year. According to the corporation, revenue for fiscal 2022 would climb by nearly 18 percent, resulting in full-year sales of close to $30 billion. According to Refinitiv, analysts expected sales of $31.6 billion.
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“We are witnessing the effect of global supply chain limitations in our merchant base,” Schulman said on the call. “Consumer confidence is reduced with the lack of stimulus payments, and with the economy reopening, more individuals may be inclined to conduct their Christmas shopping in-store.”
PayPal has already failed third-quarter sales projections and reduced its current-year outlook.
During the height of the epidemic, buyers switched to e-commerce, causing the stock to skyrocket in 2020. It is already down 14% in 2021, while the Nasdaq is up 23% for the year. Following news that PayPal was in late-stage discussions to purchase social networking service Pinterest, investors began to become pessimistic on the firm last month.
PayPal subsequently said that it was not interested in acquiring Pinterest. On Monday’s conference, Schulman addressed the issue without identifying Pinterest.
“It is our job to investigate all possible options to increase shareholder value,” he added. “However, only a few acquisitions will match our very stringent financial, strategic, and capital allocation requirements.”
Following the call, many analysts reduced their price expectations.
“PYPL was one of the pandemic’s largest benefactors,” analysts at D.A. Davidson said in a note to investors on Tuesday. “However, the uneven global economic recovery amid supply chain concerns as well as harsh comparisons are threatening growth expectations.”
The brokerage maintained its buy recommendation on the stock, but reduced its price objective to $275 from $325. The stock is presently trading at roughly $201, its lowest level in over a year.
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JMP Securities maintained its buy rating but reduced its target price to $260 from $300.
“Our impression is that management may have been snake bitten (as many have) by the rapid reversal in demand in several industries, particularly travel, that preceded the Delta variant rise,” JMP analysts said on Tuesday.
They labeled the Amazon acquisition as a “possible game changer” and said the headwinds looked to be “transitory,” lasting only until early next year.
Aside from macroeconomic issues, PayPal is planning for a future without eBay. Six years after the firms separated, eBay is transferring merchants away from PayPal and onto its own payment system. PayPal said that traffic on eBay marketplaces fell 45 percent in the third quarter and currently accounts for less than 4 percent of revenue.
Wedbush Securities analysts decreased their price objective for PayPal from $330 to $240 in a report after the company’s performance, citing the “eBay transition” as one of the reasons. They maintained their buy recommendation on the stock.
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