Parallel Advisors LLC Increases Stock Position in Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)

Parallel Advisors LLC raised its holdings in Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) by 10.9% during the fourth quarter, Holdings Channel.com reports. The firm owned 9,629 shares of the business services provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 946 shares during the quarter. Parallel Advisors LLC’s holdings in Paychex were worth $1,350,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

A number of other institutional investors also recently added to or reduced their stakes in PAYX. State Street Corp lifted its position in shares of Paychex by 0.5% during the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,230,236 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,775,365,000 after acquiring an additional 60,455 shares during the period. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Paychex by 5.5% during the 4th quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 10,044,631 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,408,458,000 after acquiring an additional 519,761 shares during the period. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its position in shares of Paychex by 2.1% during the 3rd quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,414,072 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $1,262,700,000 after acquiring an additional 190,937 shares during the period. Barclays PLC lifted its position in shares of Paychex by 46.2% during the 3rd quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,748,485 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $234,627,000 after acquiring an additional 552,540 shares during the period. Finally, Guinness Asset Management LTD lifted its position in shares of Paychex by 5.2% during the 4th quarter. Guinness Asset Management LTD now owns 1,649,758 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $231,295,000 after acquiring an additional 82,091 shares during the period. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.47% of the company’s stock.

Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth

PAYX has been the subject of a number of research reports. JPMorgan Chase & Co. lifted their price target on shares of Paychex from $133.00 to $139.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a research report on Tuesday, November 19th. Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and set a $148.00 price objective on shares of Paychex in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Barclays lifted their price objective on Paychex from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 23rd. Finally, UBS Group lifted their price objective on Paychex from $152.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a research report on Tuesday, March 4th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and eleven have issued a hold rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $133.23.

Paychex Trading Down 0.7 %

Shares of PAYX opened at $146.99 on Wednesday. Paychex, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $114.72 and a fifty-two week high of $158.37. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $147.45 and a two-hundred day moving average of $142.50. The company has a market capitalization of $52.93 billion, a PE ratio of 30.95, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.10 and a beta of 0.98. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a quick ratio of 1.39 and a current ratio of 1.39.

Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The business services provider reported $1.14 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.12 by $0.02. Paychex had a net margin of 32.02% and a return on equity of 45.28%. The company had revenue of $1.32 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.31 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.08 EPS. The business’s quarterly revenue was up 4.7% compared to the same quarter last year. As a group, analysts forecast that Paychex, Inc. will post 4.99 EPS for the current year.

Paychex Announces Dividend

The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 27th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 7th were paid a dividend of $0.98 per share. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Friday, February 7th. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.67%. Paychex’s dividend payout ratio is presently 82.53%.

Paychex Company Profile

Paychex, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated human capital management solutions (HCM) for payroll, benefits, human resources (HR), and insurance services for small to medium-sized businesses in the United States, Europe, and India. It offers payroll processing services; payroll tax administration services; employee payment services; and regulatory compliance services, such as new-hire reporting and garnishment processing.