PayPal (PYPL) stock price has staged a strong comeback after it published a strong earnings report last week.

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The shares surged to a high of $56.25 on Monday, about 12.12% from the lowest point this year. Despite the recent jump, the shares have dropped by more than 80% from the all-time high.

Unloved and undervalued

PayPal and other popular fintech stocks like Affirm and Block have been unloved by Wall Street investors. The companies have come under intense pressure as they transition from growth to value. They experienced robust growth during the pandemic as more people embraced online shopping. 

PayPal is also facing strong competition, especially from Apple Pay, a product that is used by over 500 million users from around the world. Also, its relatively newer businesses like cryptocurrencies and Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) are going through headwinds.

However, PayPal is still a good company with a strong competitive advantage. The most recent results showed that the company has over 428 million users from around the world. It shed about 3 million users during the quarter while the transaction costs per customer rose.

PayPal’s total payment volume jumped by 15% to $387.7 billion while its branded checkout volume rose by 6%. Transaction revenue rose by 7% to $6.7 billion while value added revenue jumped by 25% to $764 million.

These results, coupled with the thinning margins, mean that the company is not growing as fast as it did before. Nonetheless, a case can be made for investing in the company. It has a strong balance sheet and is actively returning money to shareholders through buybacks. 

The company has taken advantage of low share price to acquire shares worth over $4.4 billion. As a result, the total number of outstanding shares has dropped to 1.08 billion, down from 1.18 billion in 2021.

PayPal has become quite undervalued. It has a forward PE multiple of 9.66, which is lower than S&P 500’s 18.62. PayPal also has a forward EV to EBITDA and forward P/S of 8.18 and 2.04, respectively. All these metrics are much lower than its historical numbers.

PayPal stock price forecast

PYPL chart by TradingView

On the 1D chart, we see that the PYPL share price has formed a downward trend in the past few months. The shares have formed a descending channel, which is shown in blue. The recent rebound happened after the stock retested the lower side of the channel. 

It has now moved slightly below the 25-day and 50-day moving averages while volume has moved sideways. It has moved back to the middle line of the Regression channel. 

Therefore, I believe that there is a long-term value in PayPal stock. However, despite the recent rebound, technicals suggest that it is not out of the wood yet. 

Instead, I recommend buying if it crosses the resistance at $57.35 with the initial take-profit being the upper side of the channel at $70. A break above that level will confirm the bullish trend and retest the key point at $76.53.

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