Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH) Sees Significant Growth in Short Interest

Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH - Get Free Report) saw a large increase in short interest in the month of March. As of March 15th, there was short interest totalling 402,900 shares, an increase of 44.4% from the February 28th total of 279,000 shares. Approximately 1.9% of the company's stock are sold short. Based on an average trading volume of 671,800 shares, the short-interest ratio is currently 0.6 days.

Analyst Ratings Changes

PRTH has been the subject of several recent analyst reports. TD Cowen raised shares of Priority Technology to a "strong-buy" rating in a report on Tuesday, March 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods restated an "outperform" rating and issued a $12.00 price objective (down from $14.00) on shares of Priority Technology in a report on Friday, March 7th.

Priority Technology Price Performance

NASDAQ PRTH traded down $0.55 during trading hours on Thursday, hitting $6.75. The company's stock had a trading volume of 441,272 shares, compared to its average volume of 258,353. Priority Technology has a 12 month low of $2.82 and a 12 month high of $12.47. The company's 50 day simple moving average is $9.19 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $8.54. The company has a market cap of $536.75 million, a P/E ratio of -16.07 and a beta of 0.99.

Insider Activity at Priority Technology

In related news, Director John Vito Priore sold 3,454,575 shares of the company's stock in a transaction that occurred on Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total value of $25,702,038.00. Following the sale, the director now owns 5,314,430 shares in the company, valued at $39,539,359.20. This represents a 39.40 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this hyperlink. Also, COO Ranjana Ram sold 6,615 shares of the business's stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total value of $49,215.60. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 686,389 shares in the company, valued at $5,106,734.16. This trade represents a 0.95 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold a total of 5,122,431 shares of company stock valued at $38,110,887 in the last three months. Company insiders own 76.30% of the company's stock.

Institutional Trading of Priority Technology

Large investors have recently made changes to their positions in the stock. National Bank of Canada FI bought a new position in Priority Technology during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $56,000. Deutsche Bank AG bought a new position in shares of Priority Technology during the 4th quarter valued at $60,000. Virtu Financial LLC purchased a new position in shares of Priority Technology in the 3rd quarter worth $91,000. SG Americas Securities LLC bought 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 valued at $101,000 after acquiring an additional 3,006 shares during the last quarter. 11.52% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

About Priority Technology

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.