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

Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH) was the recipient of a significant decline in short interest in February. As of February 15th, there was short interest totalling 327,500 shares, a decline of 20.4% from the January 31st total of 411,300 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 572,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.6 days. Approximately 1.6% of the company’s stock are short sold.

Insider Activity at Priority Technology

In other news, insider Sean Kiewiet sold 170,596 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated 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 completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 711,853 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $7,545,641.80. This trade represents a 19.33 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, CEO Thomas Charles Priore sold 294,167 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total value of $2,188,602.48. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 34,025,319 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $253,148,373.36. The trade was a 0.86 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders have sold 5,293,227 shares of company stock valued at $39,921,204. Corporate insiders own 76.30% of the company’s stock.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Priority Technology

Hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of the company. National Bank of Canada FI acquired a new position in shares of Priority Technology during the 4th quarter worth about $56,000. Deutsche Bank AG acquired a new position in shares of Priority Technology during the fourth quarter worth approximately $60,000. Virtu Financial LLC bought a new stake in shares of Priority Technology in the third quarter valued at approximately $91,000. SG Americas Securities LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Priority Technology in the fourth quarter worth $100,000. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company MN increased its position in Priority Technology by 53.8% during 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 period. 11.52% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

Priority Technology Price Performance

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

Priority Technology (NASDAQ:PRTH) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, March 6th. The company reported $0.18 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.05 by $0.13. Priority Technology had a net margin of 1.96% and a negative return on equity of 15.86%. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Priority Technology will post -0.09 EPS for the current year.

Priority Technology Company Profile

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.