Priority Technology (NASDAQ:PRTH) Trading Up 6.9% – Here’s Why

Shares of Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH) shot up 6.9% on Wednesday . The company traded as high as $9.59 and last traded at $9.58. 506,055 shares traded hands during trading, a decline of 45% from the average session volume of 919,228 shares. The stock had previously closed at $8.96.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently weighed in on PRTH. B. Riley upped their target price on shares of Priority Technology from $13.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, November 25th. Lake Street Capital upped their price target on Priority Technology from $8.00 to $13.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods raised Priority Technology from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price target for the company from $10.00 to $14.00 in a report on Thursday, January 16th.

Priority Technology Price Performance

The company has a 50 day moving average price of $9.73 and a 200 day moving average price of $7.19. The firm has a market cap of $731.07 million, a PE ratio of -22.55 and a beta of 1.17.

Priority Technology (NASDAQ:PRTH) last released its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported $0.07 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.05) by $0.12. Priority Technology had a negative return on equity of 15.86% and a net margin of 1.96%. The business had revenue of $227.05 million during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $221.15 million. During the same quarter in the prior year, the business earned ($0.16) earnings per share. On average, equities analysts anticipate that Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. will post -0.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, insider Sean Kiewiet sold 22,178 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, November 26th. The stock was sold at an average price of $10.01, for a total value of $222,001.78. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 1,009,675 shares in the company, valued at $10,106,846.75. This trade represents a 2.15 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available through the SEC website. Also, Director John Vito Priore sold 3,454,575 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total value of $25,702,038.00. Following the completion of the transaction, the director now owns 5,314,430 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $39,539,359.20. This represents a 39.40 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 5,353,646 shares of company stock worth $40,471,373. 76.30% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Priority Technology

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. SG Americas Securities LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Priority Technology during the fourth quarter valued at $100,000. Ritholtz Wealth Management boosted its stake in Priority Technology by 99.1% in the 4th quarter. Ritholtz Wealth Management now owns 24,780 shares of the company’s stock worth $291,000 after buying an additional 12,336 shares during the last quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted its stake in Priority Technology by 273.0% in the 3rd quarter. JPMorgan Chase & Co. now owns 33,900 shares of the company’s stock worth $232,000 after buying an additional 24,811 shares during the last quarter. Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new stake in Priority Technology in the 3rd quarter worth about $91,000. Finally, Barclays PLC boosted its stake in Priority Technology by 255.9% in the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 26,064 shares of the company’s stock worth $178,000 after buying an additional 18,741 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 11.52% of the company’s stock.

Priority Technology Company Profile

Priority Technology Holdings, Inc operates as a payment technology company in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMB) Payments, Business-To-Business (B2B) Payments, and Enterprise Payments. It offers SMB payments processing solutions for B2C transactions through independent sales organizations, financial institutions, independent software vendors, and other referral partners through its MX product suite, which includes MX Connect and MX Merchant products, such as MX Insights, MX Storefront, MX Retail, MX Invoice, MX B2B and ACH.com, and others, which provides flexible and customizable set of business applications that helps to manage critical business work functions and revenue performance to resellers and merchant clients using core payment processing.