PayPal Holdings, Inc.
Orin's own judgment of how firmly the evidence points one way — not the chance the price goes up.
PayPal trades at 10.6x trailing earnings and 7.0x EV/EBITDA — roughly 66% and 68% below financial-services peer medians — despite FY2025 diluted EPS of $5.41 growing 35.6% year-over-year and operating margin expanding to 18.3%.
The stock has reclaimed its 50-day ($56.08) and 200-day ($50.05) moving averages with a positive MACD histogram, and PayPal has beaten consensus EPS in three of the last four quarters, including a 7.8% beat in Q2 2026; the newly announced Glance AI-commerce integration and management's $1.5B cost-savings target add credible catalysts, though FY2025 revenue growth decelerating to 4.3% tempers conviction. The setup favors accumulation of a deeply discounted, cash-generative franchise with improving profitability and emerging AI-driven topline optionality.
What could go wrong
- Revenue deceleration. FY2025 revenue growth was 4.3% versus 6.8% in FY2024 and 8.2% in FY2023; further deceleration could keep the multiple compressed despite EPS gains.
- Persistent insider selling. Net insider dispositions of $9.9M over the trailing 24 months across 50 sales, including recent CFO and segment-president sales, signal limited internal conviction at these levels.
- Competitive pressure. Post-2021 underperformance has been attributed to the rise of alternative payment platforms; share-loss in checkout or Venmo could undermine the margin-recovery thesis.
- Macro/rate sensitivity. A hotter inflation print lifted long-end yields in mid-October 2026; while PYPL barely budged, rising rates can pressure fintech multiples and BNPL-adjacent demand.
What would change my mind
Where this comes from: peer comparison · FY25 fundamentals · FY24 and FY25 fundamentals · earnings vs estimates, Q2 2026. Orin's read on PYPL; not advice.
How has the share price moved?
Down 20.2% over twelve months, from $70.25 on 27 Oct 2025 to $56.09 at the Tue 27 Oct 2026 close. Its highest close in that time was $73.02 on 28 Oct 2025; the last close is 23.2% below it.
- Green line: the closing price each trading day.
- Grey line: the average closing price over the last 50 trading days.
- Dashed amber line: the same over the last 200 trading days — a slower, smoother line.
- Bars along the bottom: shares traded each day — green when it closed higher than the day before, rose when lower (the most, 141.7M, on 3 Feb 2026).
- Flags: the company's filings, on the day they were made (a 10-Q is the quarterly report and a 10-K the annual report; an 8-K reports a major event).
On file
All PYPL filingsLargest holders · 13F Q2 2026
Money flow| Filer | Position | Of fund |
|---|---|---|
| BlackRock | $3.2B | 0.0% |
| Vanguard Capital Management | $2.3B | 0.0% |
| State Street | $1.8B | 0.1% |
| Invesco | $1.4B | 0.1% |
| Geode Capital Management | $1.3B | 0.1% |
| Vanguard Portfolio Management | $978.3M | 0.0% |
| Bank of America | $975.6M | 0.1% |
| Goldman Sachs Group | $500.1M | 0.0% |
| Norges Bank | $491.3M | 0.0% |
| Morgan Stanley | $445.8M | 0.0% |
108 of the 815 filers we track · quarter ended Q2 2026 · positions, not flows
Insiders, last 24 months: 351 Form 4 filings; open-market trades net −$9.9M. 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
Orin answers questions about PYPL from its filings, transcripts and numbers — with the source behind every claim. Your own desk starts with 3 free days, card required.
Start 3 free days →How is it priced, against its own past and its sector?
Priced at 10.6× its last 12 months of profit (Tue 27 Oct close) — lower than in all 5 of its last 5 fiscal years (middle 21.2×); the typical Financial Services company on the NASDAQ is at 20.4×.
| Measure | Now | Its usual | Sector |
|---|---|---|---|
| P/E | 10.6×below usual | 21.2× | 20.4× |
| P/S | 1.40× | — | — |
| EV/EBITDA | 7.3× | — | — |
| P/B | 2.4×below usual | 4.1× | — |
- P/S: no usual level — it ran from 1.69× to 8.73× over its last 5 fiscal years, so a middle value says little.
- EV/EBITDA: no usual level — it ran from 7.5× to 40.3× over its last 5 fiscal years, so a middle value says little.
- "Its usual" is the middle of its own last 5 fiscal years.
P/E: the share price divided by one year of profit per share — roughly how many years of today's profit the price pays for. A company that loses money has no P/E.
P/S: the company's total market value divided by one year of revenue. Used when there is no profit to measure.
EV/EBITDA: the price of the whole company (its shares plus its debt, minus its cash) divided by one year of operating profit before interest, tax and write-downs.
P/B: the share price divided by the book value per share — what the company owns minus what it owes, as its accounts record it. When book value is tiny, P/B swings wildly and says little.
What do the analysts who cover it publish?
The analysts' average 12-month price target is $55.88 (from $45 to $70) — 0% below the Tue 27 Oct close price. That is their published opinion, not Orin's.
$55.88
$45 – $70 · −0% against the last close
- 5 buy or overweight
- 24 hold
- 2 underweight or sell
Price target: the share price an analyst publishes for about 12 months ahead. It is the opinion of the firm that wrote it; the average is across the firms that cover the company.
Overweight / underweight: analysts' rating words: overweight means the firm expects the stock to do better than the others it covers, underweight worse. Their words, not Orin's.
How is it priced next to the companies it is compared to?
Priced at 10.6× its last 12 months of profit; the middle P/E of the 3 companies it is compared to that made a profit is 28.3×.
| Company | Market value | P/E | EV/EBITDA | Gross margin | Net margin | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PYPLPayPal Holdings, Inc. | $48B | 10.6× | 7.3× | 44.5% | 13.8% | 24% |
| GPNGlobal Payments Inc. | $25B | lost money | 10.9× | 61.5% | −11.4% | −6% |
| MAMastercard Incorporated | $534B | 33.5× | 24.7× | 100.0% | 46.3% | 232% |
| SOFISoFi Technologies, Inc. | $21B | 28.3× | n/a | n/a | 12.1% | 7% |
| VVisa Inc. | $750B | 21.9× | 26.4× | 117.3% | 51.2% | 65% |
- GPN: lost money over the last 12 months, so no P/E.
- SOFI: gross margin is not used (n/a) for a bank, an insurer or a property trust — what it sells is money or space, not goods.
- SOFI: EV/EBITDA is not used (n/a) for a lender — the debt in its enterprise value is mostly the deposits it lends out.
- The list of companies is the data vendor's choice, so it can include a company a person would not have picked.
Market value: the share price times the number of shares — what the whole company is priced at.
P/E: the share price divided by one year of profit per share — roughly how many years of today's profit the price pays for. A company that loses money has no P/E.
EV/EBITDA: the price of the whole company (its shares plus its debt, minus its cash) divided by one year of operating profit before interest, tax and write-downs.
Gross margin: the share of each $1 of sales left after the direct cost of making what was sold.
Net margin: the share of each $1 of sales kept as profit after every cost. Below zero, the company lost money.
ROE: return on equity: one year of profit as a share of the shareholders' money in the business (its book value).
Is it priced high or low compared with its own past?
Priced at 10.6× its last 12 months of profit (Tue 27 Oct close). It has no full fiscal year on file since its history starts, so there is nothing of its own to compare with.
- Now10.6×
P/E: the share price divided by one year of profit per share — roughly how many years of today's profit the price pays for. A company that loses money has no P/E.
Fiscal year (FY): the company's own 12-month accounting year, which need not match the calendar year.
How has its sector been priced?
Financial Services companies on the NASDAQ were priced at a typical 20.4× their yearly profit (Tue 27 Oct close).
- Now20.4×
- Each year is the middle of that calendar year's daily sector P/E; "Now" is the Tue 27 Oct close figure, the same one in the table above.
Sector P/E: the middle P/E of the companies in the same sector on the same stock exchange, as the data vendor works it out each day.
What does a cash-flow model say a share is worth?
A standard cash-flow model puts it at $133 a share — 137% above the $55.84 price it was computed against (27 Oct).
| Model | Value a share | Against the price then |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $133 | 137% above $55.84 |
| Levered | $80 | 43% above $55.84 |
Discounted cash flow: a model's estimate of what the company is worth today, from the cash it is forecast to make in future years. Small changes in the forecast move it a lot, and it says little about a company that loses money.
Standard / levered: two versions of the cash-flow model: the standard one counts the cash before the company pays its lenders, the levered one after.