Monness Crespi Hardt analyst James Cakmak is now the most bullish
Paypal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: PYPL) analyst
on the Street, reiterating a Buy rating and upping his price target from $54 to $70.
The firm’s “top idea for 2017” has an average price target across analysts of around $55. After jumping over 3 percent on
Wednesday, PayPal shares were trading in the $57-handle before the open Thursday.
The company has had a strong run this year, up over 43 percent, but Cakmak still sees room for upside with Venmo and new mobile
platforms being key drivers (see Cakmak's track record here).
Catalysts At Work
In just a few months, Pay with Venmo
will officially launch, allowing users to pay of merchants across the country with the app.
The analyst believes the service will be a significant benefit to margin growth, especially as the company looks to expand its
enterprise business to a full suite of mobile solutions.
In April, PayPal announced a deal with Android Pay, allowing the service to be used on the millions of phones powered by
Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ:
GOOGL)’s Android operating system.
The deal was limited to domestic payments, but Cakmak sees it expanding to international markets in the future.
Paypal also announced
a deal with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL),
making it available through Apple Pay across the latter’s services. The news led to Wednesday’s share price spike.
Besides opening up new opportunities for the company, Cakmak believes the deal will diminish risk from competitors moving
forward.
Less talked about, Braintree’s close partnership with Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) could yield an currently underestimated windfall. In the near-term, the business
could be incorporated into efforts by Facebook to monetize publishers.
PayPal will report its second
quarter earnings on July 26.
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Latest Ratings for PYPL
| Date |
Firm |
Action |
From |
To |
| Jul 2017 |
Bernstein |
Upgrades |
Market Perform |
Outperform |
| Jun 2017 |
Pacific Crest |
Upgrades |
Sector Weight |
Overweight |
| May 2017 |
Stifel Nicolaus |
Downgrades |
Buy |
Hold |
View More Analyst Ratings for
PYPL
View the Latest Analyst Ratings
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