5 Best Gig Economy Stocks To Buy

4. PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 87

PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) is used by freelancers all over the world for payment transactions, and the company’s subsidiary, Hyperwallet, is a payout platform from where contractors and freelancers receive payments.

On April 30, PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) reported first-quarter earnings. The Q1 non-GAAP EPS was $1.40 and beat the consensus by $0.18. The revenue jumped 9.4% year-over-year to $7.7 billion, which surpassed the estimates by $180 million.

At a stake value of $2.33 billion, 87 hedge funds held positions in PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL). As of Q4 of 2023, Two Sigma Advisors is the largest shareholder in the company. In the quarter, the firm increased its stake by 90% to 7.496 million shares worth $460.335 million.

ClearBridge Investments stated the following regarding PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) in its first quarter 2024 investor letter:

“Given our view that the overall market looks expensive, mostly due to mega cap valuations, the low likelihood that technology can continue to deliver well above market returns and an expected slowdown in economic growth, risk management has guided our recent positioning activity. We have been consistently trimming from the select bucket and redeploying into undervalued stable and cyclical names, while also being cognizant of position sizing to maintain the latitude to add to names when prices become attractive.

We were also active in adding to stable bucket investments PayPal Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:PYPL) and UnitedHealth Group where negative near-term sentiment led to more attractive risk/reward profiles. We added to electronic payments provider PayPal as we have growing confidence that new CEO Alex Chriss’s strategic focus areas can improve the company’s performance, particularly in the key branded business. We added to our UnitedHealth position after shares were pressured due to fears over competition among managed care providers and rising medical loss ratios in the industry. We believe the company will be able to “re-price” for higher medical costs, making this pressure transitory and we see competitive concerns as overblown.”