Summit Financial LLC Buys 754 Shares of Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)

Summit Financial LLC boosted its position in shares of Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) by 14.5% during the 4th quarter, according to its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 5,940 shares of the business services provider’s stock after acquiring an additional 754 shares during the period. Summit Financial LLC’s holdings in Paychex were worth $833,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.

Other large investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Meeder Asset Management Inc. raised its stake in shares of Paychex by 220.7% in the 4th quarter. Meeder Asset Management Inc. now owns 186 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $26,000 after buying an additional 128 shares in the last quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC raised its position in Paychex by 11.4% in the fourth quarter. O Shaughnessy Asset Management LLC now owns 124,185 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $17,413,000 after purchasing an additional 12,705 shares in the last quarter. RWA Wealth Partners LLC raised its position in Paychex by 10.6% in the fourth quarter. RWA Wealth Partners LLC now owns 5,309 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $744,000 after purchasing an additional 509 shares in the last quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group lifted its stake in Paychex by 86.5% during the fourth quarter. Schroder Investment Management Group now owns 1,355,713 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $189,746,000 after purchasing an additional 628,912 shares during the period. Finally, Allianz SE acquired a new stake in Paychex during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,613,000. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 83.47% of the company’s stock.

Paychex Stock Performance

PAYX stock opened at $154.94 on Thursday. The company has a 50 day moving average price of $148.76 and a 200 day moving average price of $143.73. Paychex, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $115.40 and a fifty-two week high of $158.37. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20, a current ratio of 1.39 and a quick ratio of 1.39. The stock has a market capitalization of $55.81 billion, a PE ratio of 32.62, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 4.10 and a beta of 0.98.

Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) last released its earnings results on Wednesday, March 26th. The business services provider reported $1.49 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.48 by $0.01. The company had revenue of $1.51 billion during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $1.51 billion. Paychex had a return on equity of 45.28% and a net margin of 32.02%. The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 4.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the company posted $1.38 earnings per share. Analysts forecast that Paychex, Inc. will post 4.99 EPS for the current year.

Paychex Announces Dividend

The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, February 27th. Stockholders of record on Friday, February 7th were paid a $0.98 dividend. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.53%. The ex-dividend date was Friday, February 7th. Paychex’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 81.67%.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

Several research firms recently commented on PAYX. Cfra Research upgraded Paychex to a “hold” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 27th. Stifel Nicolaus boosted their target price on shares of Paychex from $141.00 to $156.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research note on Thursday, March 27th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a “sector perform” rating and set a $148.00 target price on shares of Paychex in a research report on Friday, December 20th. Morgan Stanley boosted their price target on shares of Paychex from $137.00 to $142.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Thursday, March 27th. Finally, UBS Group raised their price objective on shares of Paychex from $152.00 to $155.00 and gave the stock a “neutral” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 4th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and eleven have issued a hold rating to the company. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Paychex currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average price target of $138.83.

Paychex Profile

Paychex, Inc, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated human capital management solutions (HCM) for payroll, benefits, human resources (HR), and insurance services for small to medium-sized businesses in the United States, Europe, and India. It offers payroll processing services; payroll tax administration services; employee payment services; and regulatory compliance services, such as new-hire reporting and garnishment processing.