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Wall Street hit the brakes
PayPal is getting a cooler welcome from Macquarie. Analyst Paul Golding downgraded the payments giant from Outperform to Neutral and lopped the price target down to $50 from $58.
That’s not exactly the kind of email a stock wants to wake up to. PayPal closed Wednesday at $46.26, so the new target still leaves a little upside — just not the kind that screams “buy the dip and dance about it.”
Why investors should care
Analyst downgrades don’t change a company’s business overnight, but they can absolutely change the mood music around a stock. And PayPal already lives in a world where investors are constantly asking the same annoying question: is this a comeback, or just a value trap wearing a fake mustache?
A more cautious call from Macquarie suggests the market may need more proof on things like:
- transaction growth
- margin durability
- how much room there really is for re-acceleration
It wasn’t just PayPal
Thursday’s roundup also included downgrades for Amplitude, Accuray, Angi, and Criteo, which tells you the analyst community was feeling a little less sunny than usual.
Big picture: when the Street cools on a name like PayPal, the stock doesn’t need a catastrophe — it just needs patience to get more expensive than investors are willing to pay.