Priority Technology (NASDAQ:PRTH) Trading Down 4.6% on Insider Selling

Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH) shares fell 4.6% during trading on Thursday after an insider sold shares in the company. The company traded as low as $9.04 and last traded at $9.04. 180,158 shares were traded during trading, a decline of 80% from the average session volume of 887,866 shares. The stock had previously closed at $9.47.

Specifically, CEO Thomas Charles Priore sold 105,833 shares of Priority Technology stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total value of $787,397.52. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 33,919,486 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $252,360,975.84. The trade was a 0.31 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. Also, CEO Thomas Charles Priore sold 294,167 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Friday, January 17th. The shares were sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total value of $2,188,602.48. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief executive officer now directly owns 34,025,319 shares in the company, valued at approximately $253,148,373.36. This represents a 0.86 % decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. In other Priority Technology news, COO Ranjana Ram sold 6,615 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total transaction of $49,215.60. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer now directly owns 686,389 shares in the company, valued at $5,106,734.16. The trade was a 0.95 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this hyperlink.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

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

Priority Technology Price Performance

The stock’s 50-day simple moving average is $9.76 and its two-hundred day simple moving average is $7.21. The firm has a market capitalization of $697.12 million, a P/E ratio of -21.50 and a beta of 1.17.

Priority Technology (NASDAQ:PRTH) last issued its earnings results on Thursday, November 7th. The company reported $0.07 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.05) by $0.12. The company had revenue of $227.05 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate 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 quarter in the prior year, the firm posted ($0.16) EPS. On average, analysts forecast that Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. will post -0.09 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.

Institutional Trading of Priority Technology

Several institutional investors have recently made changes to their positions in PRTH. Virtu Financial LLC purchased a new position in shares of Priority Technology during the third quarter valued at about $91,000. SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new stake in Priority Technology in the 4th quarter worth approximately $100,000. BNP Paribas Financial Markets raised its holdings in shares of Priority Technology by 61.7% during the 3rd quarter. BNP Paribas Financial Markets now owns 15,983 shares of the company’s stock worth $109,000 after acquiring an additional 6,096 shares in the last quarter. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. bought a new position in shares of Priority Technology during the 3rd quarter valued at approximately $112,000. Finally, Jane Street Group LLC increased its position in Priority Technology by 6.1% in the third quarter. Jane Street Group LLC now owns 22,347 shares of the company’s stock worth $153,000 after purchasing an additional 1,293 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 11.52% of the company’s stock.

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.