Cornell Pochily Investment Advisors Inc. Grows Stake in Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)

Cornell Pochily Investment Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX) by 1.1% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 15,862 shares of the business services provider’s stock after buying an additional 173 shares during the period. Cornell Pochily Investment Advisors Inc.’s holdings in Paychex were worth $2,224,000 as of its most recent SEC filing.

A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. Pacer Advisors Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Paychex by 2.1% in the 4th quarter. Pacer Advisors Inc. now owns 91,874 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $12,883,000 after buying an additional 1,869 shares during the last quarter. United Asset Strategies Inc. grew its position in Paychex by 3.4% in the fourth quarter. United Asset Strategies Inc. now owns 17,675 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $2,478,000 after acquiring an additional 576 shares in the last quarter. KBC Group NV increased its stake in Paychex by 2.6% in the fourth quarter. KBC Group NV now owns 65,411 shares of the business services provider’s stock valued at $9,172,000 after acquiring an additional 1,644 shares during the last quarter. Union Bancaire Privee UBP SA purchased a new stake in Paychex during the fourth quarter valued at about $28,000. Finally, Blue Trust Inc. lifted its stake in Paychex by 15.2% during the fourth quarter. Blue Trust Inc. now owns 8,782 shares of the business services provider’s stock worth $1,178,000 after purchasing an additional 1,158 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 83.47% of the company’s stock.

Analysts Set New Price Targets

PAYX has been the topic of several recent research reports. Stifel Nicolaus increased their price objective on Paychex from $130.00 to $141.00 and gave the company a “hold” rating in a research report on Wednesday, October 2nd. UBS Group increased their target price on shares of Paychex from $125.00 to $142.00 and gave the company a “neutral” rating in a report on Wednesday, October 2nd. JPMorgan Chase & Co. boosted their price target on shares of Paychex from $133.00 to $139.00 and gave the stock an “underweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday, November 19th. Royal Bank of Canada reiterated a “sector perform” rating and issued a $148.00 price objective on shares of Paychex in a report on Friday, December 20th. Finally, Barclays raised their price target on Paychex from $135.00 to $140.00 and gave the stock an “equal weight” rating in a research report on Monday, December 23rd. Two analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating and eleven have given a hold rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the stock currently has a consensus rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $132.23.

Paychex Stock Performance

Shares of PAYX stock opened at $146.11 on Monday. Paychex, Inc. has a 52 week low of $114.72 and a 52 week high of $150.71. The firm has a market capitalization of $52.61 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 30.76, a PEG ratio of 3.95 and a beta of 1.00. The stock has a fifty day moving average of $142.19 and a 200 day moving average of $136.43. The company has a quick ratio of 1.39, a current ratio of 1.39 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.20.

Paychex (NASDAQ:PAYX) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, December 19th. The business services provider reported $1.14 EPS for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.12 by $0.02. The business had revenue of $1.32 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.31 billion. Paychex had a return on equity of 45.28% and a net margin of 32.02%. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 4.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the firm posted $1.08 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts expect that Paychex, Inc. will post 4.99 earnings per share for the current year.

Paychex Dividend Announcement

The business also recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, February 27th. Investors of record on Friday, February 7th will be paid a $0.98 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Friday, February 7th. This represents a $3.92 annualized dividend and a dividend yield of 2.68%. Paychex’s payout ratio is currently 82.53%.

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.