Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) Short Interest Update

Global Payments Inc. (NYSE:GPN) saw a large decline in short interest during the month of July. As of July 31st, there was short interest totalling 5,320,000 shares, a decline of 7.0% from the July 15th total of 5,720,000 shares. Approximately 2.1% of the shares of the stock are short sold. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 2,350,000 shares, the short-interest ratio is presently 2.3 days.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CAO David M. Sheffield sold 1,651 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Thursday, August 8th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.73, for a total transaction of $166,305.23. Following the completion of the sale, the chief accounting officer now directly owns 20,531 shares in the company, valued at $2,068,087.63. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. 0.98% of the stock is currently owned by insiders.

Institutional Trading of Global Payments

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in the company. Pzena Investment Management LLC increased its holdings in shares of Global Payments by 194.2% in the 2nd quarter. Pzena Investment Management LLC now owns 6,423,463 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $621,149,000 after acquiring an additional 4,240,388 shares during the period. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Global Payments in the fourth quarter valued at about $365,933,000. AQR Capital Management LLC raised its holdings in shares of Global Payments by 188.1% in the second quarter. AQR Capital Management LLC now owns 1,157,728 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $109,857,000 after buying an additional 755,898 shares during the last quarter. Kodai Capital Management LP acquired a new stake in shares of Global Payments during the fourth quarter worth about $69,029,000. Finally, Natixis grew its holdings in shares of Global Payments by 830.2% during the first quarter. Natixis now owns 589,520 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $78,795,000 after buying an additional 526,143 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 89.76% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Ratings Changes

Several analysts recently issued reports on GPN shares. Susquehanna dropped their price objective on shares of Global Payments from $157.00 to $147.00 and set a “positive” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 8th. William Blair upgraded Global Payments to a “strong-buy” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 7th. Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Global Payments from $160.00 to $164.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a report on Thursday, May 2nd. Royal Bank of Canada cut their target price on Global Payments from $172.00 to $158.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a research note on Thursday, August 8th. Finally, StockNews.com downgraded Global Payments from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Monday, June 10th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have assigned a hold rating, eighteen have given a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Global Payments has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $141.48.

Global Payments Trading Down 1.1 %

GPN opened at $108.65 on Wednesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.68, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a current ratio of 0.92. Global Payments has a one year low of $91.60 and a one year high of $141.77. The company has a market cap of $27.73 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.56, a PEG ratio of 0.63 and a beta of 0.98. The business’s 50-day simple moving average is $98.70 and its 200-day simple moving average is $113.79.

Global Payments (NYSE:GPN) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, August 7th. The business services provider reported $2.93 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $2.90 by $0.03. The company had revenue of $2.57 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $2.32 billion. Global Payments had a net margin of 13.40% and a return on equity of 11.72%. The firm’s revenue was up 4.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same period in the prior year, the firm posted $2.48 earnings per share. As a group, equities research analysts expect that Global Payments will post 11.09 EPS for the current fiscal year.

Global Payments Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, September 27th. Shareholders of record on Friday, September 13th will be paid a $0.25 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Friday, September 13th. This represents a $1.00 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.92%. Global Payments’s dividend payout ratio is presently 19.84%.

About Global Payments

Global Payments Inc provides payment technology and software solutions for card, check, and digital-based payments in the Americas, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific. It operates through two segments, Merchant Solutions and Issuer Solutions. The Merchant Solutions segment offers authorization, settlement and funding, customer support, chargeback resolution, terminal rental, sales and deployment, payment security, and consolidated billing and reporting services.