Investors Purchase Large Volume of Paychex Put Options (NASDAQ:PAYX)

Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) was the recipient of some unusual options trading on Thursday. Investors purchased 4,338 put options on the company. This is an increase of 83% compared to the typical daily volume of 2,366 put options.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Paychex

Institutional investors and hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. Meeder Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in Paychex by 220.7% in the 4th quarter. Meeder Asset Management Inc. now owns 186 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $26,000 after acquiring an additional 128 shares during the last quarter. Union Bancaire Privee UBP SA purchased a new position in shares of Paychex in the fourth quarter worth about $28,000. WealthTrak Capital Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Paychex during the fourth quarter worth about $28,000. Millstone Evans Group LLC purchased a new stake in Paychex in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $33,000. Finally, Avion Wealth increased its stake in shares of Paychex by 469.8% in the fourth quarter. Avion Wealth now owns 245 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $34,000 after acquiring an additional 202 shares during the period. 83.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

Several equities research analysts recently commented on PAYX shares. Barclays lifted their price objective on Paychex from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, December 23rd. UBS Group raised their target price on shares of Paychex from $152.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Royal Bank of Canada reaffirmed a “sector perform” rating and issued a $148.00 price objective on shares of Paychex in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus increased their price target on shares of Paychex from $141.00 to $156.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday. Two equities research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and ten have assigned a hold rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $135.75.

Paychex Stock Up 0.5 %

Shares of Paychex stock traded up $0.75 during trading on Thursday, reaching $150.94. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,004,112 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,795,922. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $148.03 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $143.04. Paychex has a 1-year low of $114.72 and a 1-year high of $158.37. The company has a market cap of $54.35 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 31.76, a P/E/G ratio of 4.10 and a beta of 0.98. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20.

Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, March 26th. The business services provider reported $1.49 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.48 by $0.01. The business had revenue of $1.51 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.51 billion. Paychex had a return on equity of 45.28% and a net margin of 32.02%. The company’s revenue was up 4.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $1.38 earnings per share. As a group, equities analysts forecast that Paychex will post 4.99 earnings per share for the current year.

Paychex Announces Dividend

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 27th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 7th were issued a $0.98 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 7th. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 2.60%. Paychex’s dividend payout ratio is currently 82.53%.

Paychex Company 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.