Hunter Associates Investment Management LLC Acquires 83 Shares of Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)

Hunter Associates Investment Management LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) by 4.1% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 2,088 shares of the business services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 83 shares during the quarter. Hunter Associates Investment Management LLC’s holdings in Paychex were worth $294,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

Several other large investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp boosted its position in shares of Paychex by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,230,236 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,775,365,000 after acquiring an additional 60,455 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. boosted its position in shares of Paychex by 3.8% during the 3rd quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 9,524,870 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,278,142,000 after acquiring an additional 345,682 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Paychex by 2.1% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,414,072 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,262,700,000 after acquiring an additional 190,937 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC boosted its position in shares of Paychex by 46.2% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,748,485 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $234,627,000 after acquiring an additional 552,540 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Guinness Asset Management LTD boosted its position in Paychex by 5.2% in the fourth quarter. Guinness Asset Management LTD now owns 1,649,758 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $231,295,000 after buying an additional 82,091 shares in the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.47% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

PAYX has been the topic of a number of research analyst reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised their target price on shares of Paychex from $133.00 to $139.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Barclays raised their target price on shares of Paychex from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 23rd. Finally, Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $148.00 target price on shares of Paychex in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and eleven have given a hold rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Paychex presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $132.23.

Paychex Price Performance

PAYX stock opened at $147.67 on Friday. The company has a fifty day moving average price of $142.63 and a 200-day moving average price of $137.01. The company has a market capitalization of $53.17 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.09, a PEG ratio of 4.01 and a beta of 1.00. Paychex, Inc. has a 52-week low of $114.72 and a 52-week high of $150.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.39.

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

Paychex Announces Dividend

The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, February 27th. Investors of record on Friday, February 7th will be paid a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.65%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, February 7th. Paychex’s dividend payout ratio is presently 82.53%.

About Paychex

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.