PayPal Stock Sinks After CFO Leaves Company for Walmart

The shares of PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL) are sinking even deeper into the red this morning, last seen down 4.7% at $103.15, on news that the company's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) John Rainey will be leaving PayPal to serve in the same role at Walmart (WMT), taking over for Brett Biggs who has been with the retailer for 22 years. Rainey will take over on June 6, though he will stay on as an advisor through Jan. 31 at PayPal. 

It's been a pretty rough year for PayPal stock, from a technical standpoint. The security's downward trend since its August 2021 highs is highlighted by continuous pressure at the 40-day moving average. While PYPL did recently topple this trendline, it looks like today's drop will once again put the shares south of here. In the last year, the equity has lost nearly 60%, and it's down an astonishing 42.6% in 2022 alone. 

Susquehanna chimed in with a price-target cut to $215 from $220 following the c-suite shakeup, and other analysts could join suit. The 12-month consensus price target of $174.49 is a hefty 68.8% premium to current levels. Plus, 21 of the 29 in coverage call PYPL a "buy" or better, compared to just seven "hold" ratings and one "strong sell."

Short-term options traders are still incredibly call-biased, and an unwinding of some of this optimism could put additional pressure on the stock. This is per PayPal's Schaeffer's put/call open interest ratio (SOIR) of 0.63, which sits higher than just 12% of readings from the past year.