Better Times Ahead For Shift4 Payments Inc. (NYSE: FOUR)?

The Vanguard Group, Inc. has recently announced that it has increased stake in Shift4 Payments Inc. (NYSE:FOUR) by 3.44%. After grabbing 4.9 million shares, the institutional investor is now in possession of 0.16 million shares of the Technology Company. The new investment brought the stake of investor firm to 8.91% having worth around $332.14 million. Moreover, ClearBridge Investments LLC increased its share by 39006.0 to have a control over 1.64 million shares. And Summit Partners Public Asset Mana raised its holdings to 0.39 million shares by acquiring 0.92 million shares or 1.67% of the stake.

Shift4 Payments Inc. (FOUR) concluded trading on 05/24/23 at a closing price of $64.98, with 1.03 million shares of worth about $66.72 million changed hands on the day. Half year performance of the stock remained positive as price took a surge of 41.66% during that period and on Wednesday the price saw a loss of about -2.90%. Currently the company’s common shares owned by public are about 84.19M shares, out of which, 56.41M shares are available for trading.

A deeper look into what the analysts at Wall Street are thinking about the price target of this stock provides us with the following: 17 analysts are covering the FOUR stock and their offered price forecasts bring an average price target of $79.00. Over the next 12 months, analysts forecasted that the stock’s price could jump as high as $97.00 and could fall to a lowest price of $50.00. The stock’s current price level is 19.18% above of average price target set by the analysts, while a rise to estimated low would result in loss of -29.96% for the stock. However, touching the estimated high of $97.00 would mean a gain of 33.01% for the stock.

According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), insiders took part in trade of the company’s stock for 30 times over the past 12 months. They bought 828,659 shares in 14 of the transactions. In 16 selling transactions, insiders dumped 139,099 shares.

Hartford Mid Cap Fund, Delaware Mid Cap Growth Equity Fu, and Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF are the top 3 mutual funds which are holding stakes in Shift4 Payments Inc. Hartford Mid Cap Fund is currently holding 2.14 million shares of worth totaling $144.83 million. The company recently came selling -0.11 million shares which brought its stake up to 3.89% of the company’s outstanding shares. Delaware Mid Cap Growth Equity Fu sold 69245.0 shares, after which its hold over company’s outstanding shares shrunk to 3.01%, leaving 1.65 million shares with the mutual fund that have a worth of about $111.99 million. Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, after buying 1.56 million shares, have now control over 2.84% of the stake in the company. It holds 629.0 shares of worth $105.68 million.

Shift4 Payments Inc. (NYSE: FOUR) started trading at $65.47, below -$1.45 from concluding price of the previous day. However, the stock later moved at a day high price of 66.23, or with a loss of -2.90%. Stock saw a price change of 0.25% in past 5 days and over the past one month there was a price change of 2.35%. Year-to-date (YTD), FOUR shares are showing a performance of 16.18% which increased to 42.28% when we look at its performance for past 12 months. Over the period of past 52 weeks, stock dropped to lowest price of $29.39 but also hit the highest price of $76.40 during that period. The average intraday trading volume for Shift4 Payments Inc. shares is 1.65 million. The stock is currently trading 1.41% above its 20-day simple moving average (SMA20), while that difference is down -3.36% for SMA50 and it goes to 16.30% higher than SMA200.

The Vanguard Group, Inc. acquired 4.9 million shares of Shift4 Payments Inc. having value of about $332.14 million. Data submitted at the U.S SEC by The Vanguard Group, Inc. revealed that the firm now holds 0.16 million shares in the company valued at close to $10583487.54, or have control over 3.44% stake in the company. Shift4 Payments Inc. (NYSE: FOUR) currently have 84.19M outstanding shares and institutions hold larger chunk of about 109.36% of that. Holding of mutual funds in the company is about 42.48% while other institutional holders and individual stake holders have control over 59.29% and 2.92% of the stake respectively.

The stock has a current market capitalization of $5.43B. PE ratio of stock for trailing 12 months is 55.35, while it has posted earnings per share of $1.17 in the same period. Its PEG reads 0.70 and has Quick Ratio of 3.70 while making debt-to-equity ratio of 4.45. Volatility of a stock is a metric used to know how much the price of that stock is under influence and for FOUR, volatility over the week remained 3.91% while standing at 4.56% over the month.

Analysts are in expectations that Shift4 Payments Inc. (FOUR) stock would likely to be making an EPS of $0.55 in the current quarter, while forecast for next quarter EPS is $0.66 and it is $3.05 for next year. For the current quarter EPS, analysts have given the company a lowest target $0.42 which is $0.72 at the higher side of the target for the same. When we compare those targets with actual EPS, we find that company posted an EPS of $0.33 in the same quarter a year ago. Stock’s fiscal year EPS is expected to rise by 201.80% while it is estimated to increase by 26.48% in next year.

Analysts at 17 brokerage firms have issued recommendations for the Shift4 Payments Inc. (FOUR)’s stock and average of those rates the stock at a “Moderate Buy” and assign it a score of 2.00. Out of those 17 Wall Street analysts, 13 recommended a “Buy” rating, while 2 were in favor recommending the stock as a “Hold” and 2 analyst recommended the stock as “Sell”.