Atria Wealth Solutions Inc. Sells 716 Shares of Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)

Atria Wealth Solutions Inc. reduced its stake in Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) by 4.4% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 15,521 shares of the business services provider’s stock after selling 716 shares during the period. Atria Wealth Solutions Inc.’s holdings in Paychex were worth $2,176,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also made changes to their positions in the company. State Street Corp lifted its holdings in Paychex by 0.5% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 13,230,236 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,775,365,000 after acquiring an additional 60,455 shares in the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its holdings in Paychex by 3.8% during the third quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 9,524,870 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,278,142,000 after acquiring an additional 345,682 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC lifted its holdings in Paychex by 2.1% during the third quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 9,414,072 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,262,700,000 after acquiring an additional 190,937 shares in the last quarter. Barclays PLC lifted its holdings in Paychex by 46.2% during the third quarter. Barclays PLC now owns 1,748,485 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $234,627,000 after acquiring an additional 552,540 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Guinness Asset Management LTD lifted its holdings in Paychex by 5.2% during the fourth quarter. Guinness Asset Management LTD now owns 1,649,758 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $231,295,000 after acquiring an additional 82,091 shares in the last quarter. 83.47% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of brokerages have recently commented on PAYX. Barclays boosted their price target on Paychex from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a report on Monday, December 23rd. Royal Bank of Canada restated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $148.00 price target on shares of Paychex in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on Paychex from $133.00 to $139.00 and gave the company an “underweight” rating in a report on Tuesday, November 19th. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and eleven have issued a hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat, Paychex has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $132.23.

Paychex Price Performance

NASDAQ:PAYX opened at $148.51 on Friday. The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $144.11 and its 200 day simple moving average is $139.70. The company has a market cap of $53.47 billion, a P/E ratio of 31.27, a P/E/G ratio of 4.10 and a beta of 1.00. 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, Inc. has a 52-week low of $114.72 and a 52-week high of $151.72.

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

Paychex Dividend Announcement

The firm also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, February 27th. Shareholders of record on Friday, February 7th will be given a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.64%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 7th. Paychex’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 82.53%.

About Paychex

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.