Key Stats for PayPal Stock
- Current Price: $56.05
- Target Price (Mid): ~$87
- Street Target: ~$57
- Potential Total Return: ~55%
- Annualized IRR: ~11% / year
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What Happened?
PayPal Holdings (PYPL) closed at $56.05 on October 12, 2026, up 6.70% from its September 30 close of $52.53. No company-specific catalyst has been reported for the gain, and Barclays trimmed its target during the run. The rally also came a month after CEO Enrique Lores lowered the bar on branded checkout, the PayPal button he said the company has been relying on “as the source of profit.” The third-quarter report, expected October 27 through PayPal’s investor relations materials, tests whether shares have run ahead of that lower bar.
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Lores Lowered the Checkout Bar and Changed the Scorecard
On PayPal’s July 28 earnings call, management guided third-quarter branded checkout growth to about 2% currency-neutral, matching the second quarter. At the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference on September 9, Lores cut that to “the 1% to 2% range.” The cause was a hit in Europe, raised by the host as tariff and de minimis changes, that falls mostly on cross-border business from China. PayPal had expected 0.5 to 1 point of drag on payment volume growth, but Lores said the impact was larger and probably longer-lasting.
Lores said he remained confident in PayPal’s EPS and transaction margin guidance, which points to a roughly flat year. PayPal’s second-quarter release calls for third-quarter EPS to decline by a low-single-digit percentage. TIKR’s guidance data puts that at $1.30 to $1.33 normalized, against $1.34 a year earlier. Full-year non-GAAP EPS is guided to about $5.38, roughly 1% above 2025’s $5.31.
The bigger shift is how PayPal wants to be judged. Active accounts were 439 million at the end of June, up 0.3% from a year earlier. Lores said PayPal’s focus “is going to shift from trying to get new customers to the platform to really maximize the value that we get from high-value customers,” citing buy now, pay later and a loyalty program among the tools. PayPal also announced checkout inside Muse on September 22, the AI agent from Meta Platforms (META). That is an announced integration, joining Stripe’s Link and Shopify’s (SHOP) Shop Pay, which reached Muse first.
Around 10 Times Earnings Leaves Room in Both Directions
PayPal trades at an NTM P/E of around 10 and around 8 times NTM free cash flow, down from about 12 times NTM earnings at the end of September 2025. The Street mean target of around $57 sits barely above the price, down from around $83 at that point. Barclays trimmed its target to $56 from $57 on October 9 and kept an Equal-Weight rating.
Lores said “double-digit EPS growth is the goal that we have for the company,” without attaching a timeframe. TIKR consensus has 2027 normalized EPS rising around 7% to about $5.77, so the market is not yet paying for that goal. Capital is the other swing factor. PayPal repurchased $6.0 billion of stock in the 12 months to June. On September 9, Lores said that strategy continues “in the short term,” but PayPal will start looking at acquisitions “at some point in the next quarter.”
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TIKR Advanced Model Analysis
- Current Price: $56.05
- Target Price (Mid): ~$87
- Potential Total Return: ~55%
- Annualized IRR: ~11% / year
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The mid case reaches around $87 by December 31, 2030, roughly 55% above the October 12 close, or around 11% a year. This is shown because its 2025 to 2035 assumptions are modest:
- Revenue growth: around 4% a year
- Net income margin: around 12%, versus 15.2% over the past year
- EPS growth: around 5% a year, well short of Lores’s double-digit goal
The primary risk is acquisitions displacing buybacks while checkout keeps slipping. On the upside, double-digit EPS growth would make the mid case look conservative. On the downside, the low case still assumes revenue growth near 3%, so a shrinking checkout business falls outside the model.
Conclusion
The expected October 27 report tests whether Lores’s confidence reaches past one quarter. Normalized EPS at or above the $1.30 to $1.33 guide, with checkout inside 1% to 2%, would show earnings holding while the button stalls. A cut to the roughly $5.38 full-year target would mean around 10 times earnings is not cheap enough.
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So what is PayPal stock actually worth?
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Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
