Trade of the Day: PayPal (PYPL)

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PayPal (PYPL) is generating a lot of broker buzz as firms are clamoring over each other to issue ratings and price targets for shares of PYPL since the company was spun-off from eBay (EBAY) in July.

Among the highlights are Susquehanna’s $50 target, Goldman Sachs’ (GS) and JPMorgan’s (JPM) $48 projection, and $30 at the low end from Piper Jaffray (PJC).

My take is that resistance for PayPal shares is at $34-$35, and a close above $36 would be bullish. Short-term support is at $32, with risk to $30 on a close below this level.

Tuesday was a struggle, but shares finished in positive territory after reaching a low of $32.67 on Tuesday. Short-term support at $32.50-$32 held, but there is risk to $30 on a close below the latter. Resistance at $34-$35 was also tested, as yesterday’s high reached $33.95.

I think PayPal will ultimately make a break north, so I recommend buying the PYPL January (2016) 40 calls (PYPL160115C00040000) at current levels around $1.05.

My exit target for the calls is a money doubler at $2.10. I don’t have a stop loss in place at the moment, but I like the trade as long as $30-$29.50 holds on a pullback.

PYPL

PayPal is scheduled to report earnings at the end of October. In late July, the company reported earnings of $0.33 a share on revenue of $2.3 billion. Wall Street was looking for $0.32 a share on revenue of $2.26 billion. The top- and bottom-line beats were impressive, and let’s not forget that the company has nearly $4 billion in cash following the eBay spinoff.

PayPal has already started to put that money to work after announcing in July that it would be acquiring Xoom for $25 a share. Xoom shareholders approved the merger with PayPal earlier this month, and the deal is expected to close by year-end. Although the digital money-transfer space is competitive, PayPal will help drive the growth of Xoom into other categories.

In August, PayPal announced that it would acquire Modest, a mobile-payment company that specializes in contextual commerce. This is a fancy term for the “Buy” buttons you may have seen on social media sites that allow users to buy products with just a few clicks or swipes.

I went with the longer-term options to give the trade plenty of time to play out. If PYPL shares trade past $42.10 by mid-January 2016, these options will double from our entry price, as they would be $2.10 “in the money.”

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Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2015/09/trade-of-the-day-paypal-pypl/.

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