PayPal Holdings, Inc. PYPL
PayPal is in active sale talks with a Stripe/Advent consortium at a price above the rejected $60.50 bid, yet the stock has already rallied to $60.47 as of 2026-08-17, essentially pricing in the rejected offer and leaving minimal spread to the known floor. Fundamentals remain compelling — FY2025 diluted EPS of $5.41 on $33.2B revenue, 11.3x P/E and 7.7x EV/EBITDA versus peer medians of 12.2x and 16.1x — but revenue growth has decelerated to 4.3% and smart-money flows are only marginally positive at 0.0125 as of Q2 2026.
With RSI at 69.3 and the price 20% above the 50-day MA, the risk/reward is balanced: upside if a deal closes at a premium, meaningful downside if talks collapse and shares revert toward the $50–52 moving-average range.
What could go wrong
- Deal break risk. If the Stripe/Advent talks collapse, shares could revert sharply toward the 50-day MA of $50.41 and 200-day MA of $51.59, representing roughly 15-17% downside from the $60.47 close.
- Revenue growth deceleration. FY2025 revenue growth of 4.3% is the slowest in the five-year window, down from 6.8% in FY2024 and 8.2% in FY2023, with ongoing weakness in branded checkout pressuring the most profitable segment.
- Insider selling. Over the trailing 24 months, insiders net sold $28.8M in value across 185 dispositions versus 122 acquisitions, and recent July-August 2026 transactions are predominantly dispositions at prices well below current levels.
- Smart-money apathy. The smart-money score has declined from 0.0924 in Q4 2024 to 0.0125 in Q2 2026, indicating institutional conviction has faded even as the stock rallied on deal speculation.
What would change my mind
Where this comes from: technicals (as of 2026-08-17) · news articles published 2026-08-14 and 2026-08-15 · fundamentals FY2025 (period ended 2025-12-31) · peer_relative (as of latest data). Orin's read on PYPL; not advice.
Twelve months actual closes to 2026-09-23 · actual filings
50-day average 200-day average · volume below
On file
All PYPL filingsLargest holders · 13F Q2 2026
Money flow| Filer | Position | Of fund |
|---|---|---|
| Vanguard Capital Management | $2.3B | 0.0% of fund |
| State Street | $1.8B | 0.1% of fund |
| Invesco | $1.4B | 0.1% of fund |
| Geode Capital Management | $1.3B | 0.1% of fund |
| Vanguard Portfolio Management | $978.3M | 0.0% of fund |
| Bank Of America /De/ | $975.6M | 0.1% of fund |
105 filers · quarter ended Q2 2026 · positions, not flows
Insiders, last 24 months: 340 Form 4 filings, net −$30.7M. Of the 50 on hand, 0 were open-market purchases and 11 sales— the rest are grants, option exercises and tax withholding.
Ask Orin about PYPL
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Start 3 free days →Where it trades
| Metric | Now | Own median | Sector |
|---|---|---|---|
| P/E | 9.9× | 21.2× | 21.6× |
| EV/EBITDA | 6.8× | 13.5× | — |
| P/S | 1.32× | 2.76× | — |
| P/B | 2.4× | 4.1× | — |
Its P/E sits below all 5 of the last 5 years (−1.13σ from its own mean).
-4.9%
free-cash-flow growth every year for 10 years, discounted at 10%, is what today’s price implies — starting from $5.6B of trailing free cash flow. It is an assumption the market is making, not a forecast Orin is making.
What Wall Street published
$56
$45 – $70 · +7% against today's price
- 25 buy or overweight
- 42 hold
- 3 underweight or sell
The analysts’ consensus and their own ratings, not Orin’s. A target is a twelve-month opinion published by the firm that wrote it.
Against the companies it is compared to
| Company | Market cap | P/E | EV/EBITDA | Gross | Net | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PYPLPayPal Holdings, Inc. | $45B | 9.9× | 6.8× | 45.8% | 14.4% | 24% |
| PNCThe PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. | $89B | 12.3× | 15.0× | 67.9% | 21.7% | 12% |
| TFCTruist Financial Corporation | $59B | 10.7× | 17.0× | 64.0% | 19.1% | 9% |
| TRVThe Travelers Companies, Inc. | $75B | 9.5× | 7.4× | 34.7% | 17.0% | 26% |
| WFCWells Fargo & Company | $248B | 11.7× | 15.2× | 64.5% | 17.5% | 13% |
The median is of the 4 peers listed above and nothing else — check it against the column. This company trades 11.8% below it. The peer set is the vendor’s, so a company can appear here that a person would not have chosen.
What it has traded at
What its sector has traded at
Two scales, drawn separately on purpose: a sector median and one company’s multiple are not the same number and putting them on one axis invites a comparison neither series supports.
Discounted cash flow
| Model | Fair value | Against | Computed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Standard DCF | $110 | $40.89 · +168% | 2026-06-10 |
| Levered DCF | $87 | $40.89 · +114% | 2026-06-10 |
The vendor’s intrinsic-value models. Treat them as a low-growth anchor — for a fast grower the market routinely pays well above a DCF. These were computed against the price in the “against” column, not today’s.
Every estimate on one scale
The vertical rule is the current price. Ranges and point estimates are the backend’s, published as they were calculated; an arrow means the estimate sits beyond this scale, and its number is on the right.