Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH) Short Interest Down 13.7% in January

Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH - Get Free Report) was the target of a large decline in short interest in January. As of January 15th, there was short interest totalling 698,800 shares, a decline of 13.7% from the December 31st total of 809,700 shares. Based on an average daily volume of 246,700 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is presently 2.8 days. Approximately 5.0% of the shares of the stock are sold short.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of analysts have recently weighed in on PRTH shares. Lake Street Capital boosted their target price on shares of Priority Technology from $8.00 to $13.00 and gave the stock a "buy" rating in a report on Friday, November 22nd. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods upgraded shares of Priority Technology from a "market perform" rating to an "outperform" rating and upped their price target for the company from $10.00 to $14.00 in a report on Thursday, January 16th. Finally, B. Riley upped their price target on shares of Priority Technology from $13.00 to $16.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a report on Monday, November 25th.

Insiders Place Their Bets

In other news, Director John Vito Priore sold 3,454,575 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total value of $25,702,038.00. Following the sale, the director now directly owns 5,314,430 shares in the company, valued at $39,539,359.20. The trade was a 39.40 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at the SEC website. Also, COO Ranjana Ram sold 18,385 shares of the business's stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total transaction of $136,784.40. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now owns 693,004 shares in the company, valued at approximately $5,155,949.76. This trade represents a 2.58 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 5,343,646 shares of company stock worth $40,419,456 in the last 90 days. 76.30% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Investors Weigh In On Priority Technology

Several large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in PRTH. Virtu Financial LLC purchased a new stake in Priority Technology in the 3rd quarter valued at about $91,000. SG Americas Securities LLC purchased a new stake in Priority Technology in the 4th quarter valued at about $100,000. BNP Paribas Financial Markets boosted its position in Priority Technology by 61.7% in the 3rd quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 15,983 shares of the company's stock valued at $109,000 after buying an additional 6,096 shares during the period. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. purchased a new stake in Priority Technology in the 3rd quarter valued at about $112,000. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC boosted its position in Priority Technology by 6.1% in the 3rd quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 22,347 shares of the company's stock valued at $153,000 after buying an additional 1,293 shares during the period. 11.52% of the stock is owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Priority Technology Stock Up 1.2 %

NASDAQ:PRTH traded up $0.11 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $9.61. 314,883 shares of the stock traded hands, compared to its average volume of 735,113. The stock has a market capitalization of $741.89 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -22.88 and a beta of 1.17. Priority Technology has a 52 week low of $2.82 and a 52 week high of $12.44. The firm's 50 day moving average is $9.89 and its two-hundred day moving average is $7.43.

Priority Technology (NASDAQ:PRTH - Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported $0.07 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of ($0.05) by $0.12. The company had revenue of $227.05 million during the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $221.15 million. Priority Technology had a net margin of 1.96% and a negative return on equity of 15.86%. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned ($0.16) EPS. As a group, research analysts predict 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.