Short Interest in Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH) Grows By 269.8%

Priority Technology Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PRTH) was the target of a significant growth in short interest in March. As of March 31st, there was short interest totalling 1,490,000 shares, a growth of 269.8% from the March 15th total of 402,900 shares. Based on an average daily trading volume, of 686,800 shares, the days-to-cover ratio is currently 2.2 days. Currently, 7.0% of the shares of the stock are short sold.

Insider Activity at Priority Technology

In other news, Director John Vito Priore sold 1,242,856 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Tuesday, January 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $7.44, for a total transaction of $9,246,848.64. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 4,071,574 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $30,292,510.56. This trade represents a 23.39 % decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. Also, CEO Thomas Charles Priore sold 294,167 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on 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 sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 34,025,319 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $253,148,373.36. This represents a 0.86 % decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders sold 5,122,431 shares of company stock valued at $38,110,887 over the last 90 days. 76.30% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of institutional investors and hedge funds have recently bought and sold shares of PRTH. National Bank of Canada FI acquired a new stake in shares of Priority Technology during the 4th quarter valued at about $56,000. Deutsche Bank AG bought a new stake in Priority Technology in the fourth quarter worth approximately $60,000. Virtu Financial LLC acquired a new position in shares of Priority Technology during the 3rd quarter worth $91,000. SG Americas Securities LLC bought a new position in shares of Priority Technology during the 4th quarter valued at $100,000. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company MN lifted its stake in shares of Priority Technology by 53.8% in the 4th quarter. Wells Fargo & Company MN now owns 8,593 shares of the company’s stock valued at $101,000 after purchasing an additional 3,006 shares during the last quarter. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 11.52% of the company’s stock.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of research firms recently commented on PRTH. TD Cowen raised shares of Priority Technology to a “strong-buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, March 18th. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $12.00 price target (down previously from $14.00) on shares of Priority Technology in a report on Friday, March 7th.

Priority Technology Stock Up 3.8 %

Shares of NASDAQ:PRTH opened at $6.78 on Tuesday. Priority Technology has a 12-month low of $3.06 and a 12-month high of $12.47. The firm has a market capitalization of $539.14 million, a P/E ratio of -16.14 and a beta of 1.20. The firm has a fifty day moving average of $8.66 and a two-hundred day moving average of $8.54.

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.