Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH) Sees Significant Drop in Short Interest

Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH) was the recipient of a significant drop in short interest during the month of January. As of January 31st, there was short interest totalling 411,300 shares, a drop of 28.4% from the January 15th total of 574,200 shares. Currently, 1.7% of the company’s shares are short sold. Based on an average daily volume of 512,900 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 0.8 days.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

PRTH has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. B. Riley lifted their price target 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 lifted their target price on shares of 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 shares of Priority Technology from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and boosted their price objective for the company from $10.00 to $14.00 in a research note on Thursday, January 16th.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other Priority Technology news, Director John Vito Priore sold 3,454,575 shares of Priority Technology stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total transaction of $25,702,038.00. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 5,314,430 shares in the company, valued at $39,539,359.20. This trade represents a 39.40 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, insider Sean Kiewiet sold 22,178 shares of Priority Technology stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, November 26th. The shares were sold at an average price of $10.01, for a total transaction of $222,001.78. Following the completion of the transaction, the insider now owns 1,009,675 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $10,106,846.75. This trade represents a 2.15 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 5,343,646 shares of company stock worth $40,419,456. Insiders own 76.30% of the company’s stock.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Priority Technology

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the business. National Bank of Canada FI bought a new position in Priority Technology during the fourth quarter worth $56,000. SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new position in Priority Technology during the fourth quarter worth $100,000. Wells Fargo & Company MN lifted its stake in Priority Technology by 53.8% during the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 8,593 shares of the company’s stock worth $101,000 after purchasing an additional 3,006 shares during the last quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC bought a new position in Priority Technology during the fourth quarter worth $118,000. Finally, Quantbot Technologies LP bought a new position in Priority Technology during the fourth quarter worth $125,000. 11.52% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Priority Technology Stock Up 2.7 %

Shares of Priority Technology stock traded up $0.30 on Friday, hitting $11.43. 350,440 shares of the company’s stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 820,314. The stock has a market cap of $882.40 million, a P/E ratio of -27.21 and a beta of 1.17. The firm’s 50-day moving average is $10.11 and its 200 day moving average is $7.76. Priority Technology has a 52-week low of $2.82 and a 52-week high of $12.44.

About Priority Technology

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.