Wayfinding Financial LLC Purchases New Stake in Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)

Wayfinding Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) during the 4th quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm acquired 1,524 shares of the business services provider’s stock, valued at approximately $213,000.

Several other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. TD Private Client Wealth LLC lifted its stake in Paychex by 5.3% during the fourth quarter. TD Private Client Wealth LLC now owns 42,884 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $6,013,000 after purchasing an additional 2,147 shares during the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. lifted its stake in Paychex by 3.9% during the fourth quarter. Whittier Trust Co. of Nevada Inc. now owns 4,588 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $643,000 after purchasing an additional 173 shares during the last quarter. HUB Investment Partners LLC lifted its stake in Paychex by 5.0% during the fourth quarter. HUB Investment Partners LLC now owns 6,090 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $854,000 after purchasing an additional 292 shares during the last quarter. Whittier Trust Co. lifted its stake in Paychex by 52.4% during the fourth quarter. Whittier Trust Co. now owns 24,774 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $3,474,000 after purchasing an additional 8,519 shares during the last quarter. Finally, iA Global Asset Management Inc. lifted its stake in Paychex by 22.5% during the fourth quarter. iA Global Asset Management Inc. now owns 48,555 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $6,808,000 after purchasing an additional 8,912 shares during the last quarter. 83.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Ratings Changes

A number of research firms have issued reports on PAYX. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $148.00 target price on shares of Paychex in a research note on Friday, December 20th. Barclays raised their target price on Paychex from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Monday, December 23rd. Finally, UBS Group raised their target price on Paychex from $152.00 to $155.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 4th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and eleven have assigned a hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, the stock has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $133.23.

Paychex Price Performance

Shares of NASDAQ PAYX opened at $143.02 on Friday. Paychex, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $114.72 and a fifty-two week high of $158.37. The firm’s 50-day simple moving average is $147.77 and its 200 day simple moving average is $142.63. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20. The stock has a market cap of $51.50 billion, a P/E ratio of 30.11, a P/E/G ratio of 4.10 and a beta of 0.98.

Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) last released its earnings results on Thursday, December 19th. The business services provider reported $1.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.12 by $0.02. The firm had revenue of $1.32 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.31 billion. Paychex had a return on equity of 45.28% and a net margin of 32.02%. Paychex’s revenue was up 4.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.08 earnings per share. Equities analysts expect that Paychex, Inc. will post 4.99 EPS for the current year.

Paychex Dividend Announcement

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 27th. Investors of record on Friday, February 7th were issued a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.74%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 7th. Paychex’s payout ratio is currently 82.53%.

Paychex Profile

Paychex, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated human capital management solutions (HCM) for payroll, benefits, human resources (HR), and insurance services for small to medium-sized businesses in the United States, Europe, and India. It offers payroll processing services; payroll tax administration services; employee payment services; and regulatory compliance services, such as new-hire reporting and garnishment processing.