Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH) Short Interest Update

Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH) was the target of a significant drop in short interest in February. As of February 15th, there was short interest totalling 327,500 shares, a drop of 20.4% from the January 31st total of 411,300 shares. Currently, 1.6% of the shares of the company are sold short. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 572,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 0.6 days.

Priority Technology Stock Down 9.7 %

NASDAQ:PRTH traded down $0.89 on Thursday, reaching $8.20. The stock had a trading volume of 631,169 shares, compared to its average volume of 698,080. The company has a market capitalization of $632.64 million, a P/E ratio of -19.54 and a beta of 0.99. Priority Technology has a 1-year low of $2.82 and a 1-year high of $12.47. The stock has a fifty day moving average price of $10.42 and a 200-day moving average price of $8.28.

Priority Technology (NASDAQ:PRTH) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, March 6th. The company reported $0.18 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $0.05 by $0.13. Priority Technology had a negative return on equity of 15.86% and a net margin of 1.96%. Sell-side analysts predict that Priority Technology will post -0.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Insider Buying and Selling

In related news, CEO Thomas Charles Priore sold 105,833 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total value of $787,397.52. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 33,919,486 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $252,360,975.84. This trade represents a 0.31 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through this hyperlink. Also, insider Sean Kiewiet sold 170,596 shares of Priority Technology stock in a transaction on Tuesday, December 24th. The stock was sold at an average price of $10.60, for a total transaction of $1,808,317.60. Following the sale, the insider now owns 711,853 shares in the company, valued at $7,545,641.80. This represents a 19.33 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 5,293,227 shares of company stock valued at $39,921,204 over the last three months. 76.30% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Trading of Priority Technology

Several large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the business. Jane Street Group LLC raised its holdings in shares of Priority Technology by 6.1% in the third quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 22,347 shares of the company’s stock valued at $153,000 after buying an additional 1,293 shares during the last quarter. Rhumbline Advisers increased its position in Priority Technology by 9.0% in the 4th quarter. Rhumbline Advisers now owns 23,706 shares of the company’s stock valued at $279,000 after acquiring an additional 1,964 shares in the last quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN raised its stake in shares of Priority Technology by 53.8% in the fourth quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 8,593 shares of the company’s stock worth $101,000 after acquiring an additional 3,006 shares during the last quarter. Barclays PLC lifted its position in shares of Priority Technology by 11.8% during the fourth quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 29,127 shares of the company’s stock worth $342,000 after purchasing an additional 3,063 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Bank of New York Mellon Corp grew its stake in shares of Priority Technology by 12.4% during the fourth quarter. Bank of New York Mellon Corp now owns 39,693 shares of the company’s stock valued at $466,000 after purchasing an additional 4,366 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 11.52% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research analysts have commented on the stock. B. Riley raised their price target on shares of Priority Technology from $13.00 to $16.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research note on Monday, November 25th. Lake Street Capital raised their target price on Priority Technology from $8.00 to $13.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, November 22nd. Finally, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded Priority Technology from a “market perform” rating to an “outperform” rating and upped their price target for the company from $10.00 to $14.00 in a research report on Thursday, January 16th.

About Priority Technology

Priority Technology Holdings, Inc operates as a payment technology company in the United States. The company operates through three segments: Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMB) Payments, Business-To-Business (B2B) Payments, and Enterprise Payments. It offers SMB payments processing solutions for B2C transactions through independent sales organizations, financial institutions, independent software vendors, and other referral partners through its MX product suite, which includes MX Connect and MX Merchant products, such as MX Insights, MX Storefront, MX Retail, MX Invoice, MX B2B and ACH.com, and others, which provides flexible and customizable set of business applications that helps to manage critical business work functions and revenue performance to resellers and merchant clients using core payment processing.