Payments Stocks Log Positive Performance

For the week that just ended, payments stocks were weighted to the positive end of performance, where the top five gainers posted mid-single-digit increases. By way of contrast, only a single stock in our pantheon posted similar metrics to the downside.

The leader of the pack was Planet Payment, which gained a bit more than 7 percent on the week. That increase came as Net Element said earlier in the month that its Unified Payments unit would partner with Planet Payment to offer the latter’s multicurrency pricing to its online offerings.

Blackhawk Network Holdings was just behind Planet Payment in terms of percentage gains as the company got a boost from equity analysts at First Analysis, which kept its overweight rating on the name and which also increased its price target to $47 from $44. In tandem with that announcement, Blackhawk shares notched a 52-week high, with a recent price north of $40.

Looking at declining issues, the only company to show a decline of more than a percent for the week came from FleetCor Technologies, which recouped some earlier losses once a positive analyst report from Morgan Stanley maintaining an “overweight” rating and a $184 stock price target.  Investor concerns over late fee practices (late fees as contributor to revenues) are not justified by modest churn and that late fees are a manageable percentage of revenues, as described in a post by StreetInsider.