Citizens Jmp Forecasts Strong Price Appreciation for Paylocity (NASDAQ:PCTY) Stock

Key Points

• Citizens Jmp raised Paylocity’s price target to $180 from $150 while maintaining a “market outperform” rating, implying 8.32% upside from the reported share price.
• Analyst sentiment remains positive: Paylocity has a “Moderate Buy” consensus rating and an average price target of $165.53, with 12 analysts rating the stock a Buy and five assigning a Hold.
• Paylocity exceeded quarterly expectations, reporting EPS of $1.84 versus the $1.62 consensus and revenue of $444.73 million; revenue increased 11% year over year.

Paylocity (NASDAQ:PCTY - Get Free Report) had its price objective upped by investment analysts at Citizens Jmp from $150.00 to $180.00 in a research note issued to investors on Tuesday, Benzinga reports. The brokerage presently has a "market outperform" rating on the software maker's stock. Citizens Jmp's price target would indicate a potential upside of 8.32% from the company's current price.

Other analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. KeyCorp upped their price target on shares of Paylocity from $172.00 to $178.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a research note on Wednesday, August 5th. Citigroup reiterated a "market outperform" rating on shares of Paylocity in a research note on Tuesday. Cantor Fitzgerald boosted their target price on shares of Paylocity from $140.00 to $165.00 and gave the company an "overweight" rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Zacks Research cut shares of Paylocity from a "strong-buy" rating to a "hold" rating in a report on Monday, July 27th. Finally, Jefferies Financial Group restated a "buy" rating and set a $165.00 target price on shares of Paylocity in a research report on Wednesday, August 5th. Twelve research analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating and five have assigned a Hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Paylocity presently has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and a consensus target price of $165.53.

Paylocity Trading Down 0.1%

Shares of PCTY opened at $166.17 on Tuesday. Paylocity has a fifty-two week low of $92.99 and a fifty-two week high of $169.09. The business has a 50-day moving average of $150.09 and a 200 day moving average of $126.35. The firm has a market cap of $8.82 billion, a P/E ratio of 29.13, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.97 and a beta of 0.50. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.07, a quick ratio of 1.09 and a current ratio of 1.09.

Paylocity (NASDAQ:PCTY - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, August 4th. The software maker reported $1.84 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.62 by $0.22. The business had revenue of $444.73 million for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $431.46 million. Paylocity had a net margin of 15.23% and a return on equity of 27.02%. The company's revenue was up 11.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the prior year, the firm earned $1.56 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Paylocity will post 6.92 EPS for the current year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, Chairman Steven Beauchamp sold 15,000 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, October 15th. The shares were sold at an average price of $165.22, for a total transaction of $2,478,300.00. Following the sale, the chairman owned 1,243,389 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $205,432,730.58. This represents a 1.19% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, SVP Joshua Scutt sold 4,730 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, August 19th. The stock was sold at an average price of $149.82, for a total transaction of $708,648.60. Following the completion of the sale, the senior vice president owned 75,729 shares in the company, valued at $11,345,718.78. This represents a 5.88% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold 92,408 shares of company stock valued at $14,647,821 in the last three months. Insiders own 19.40% of the company's stock.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in PCTY. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in Paylocity during the second quarter worth about $430,315,000. Jupiter Topco LLC purchased a new position in shares of Paylocity in the 2nd quarter worth about $70,540,000. Amundi boosted its holdings in shares of Paylocity by 9.5% in the 2nd quarter. Amundi now owns 663,449 shares of the software maker's stock worth $69,350,000 after purchasing an additional 57,291 shares in the last quarter. Van Berkom & Associates Inc. increased its position in shares of Paylocity by 17.8% during the 1st quarter. Van Berkom & Associates Inc. now owns 616,407 shares of the software maker's stock valued at $66,597,000 after purchasing an additional 93,065 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Deutsche Bank AG bought a new position in shares of Paylocity during the 2nd quarter valued at about $54,906,000. Institutional investors own 94.76% of the company's stock.

Paylocity Company Profile

Paylocity Holding Corporation NASDAQ: PCTY provides cloud-based human capital management (HCM) and payroll software for organizations. Its platform is designed to help employers manage payroll, human resources, employee benefits, talent acquisition, onboarding, performance, learning, and workforce administration through an integrated system.

The company also offers tools for time and labor management, scheduling, employee communications, engagement, surveys, expense management, and other workplace activities.

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