Tag: Block

Bitcoin Flirts with $65,000, Consider These Tech Giants with Crypto Exposure

Posted on by The INO.com Team

Bitcoin recently touched the $65,000 mark, its highest in almost three weeks, driven by a surge in demand for U.S. exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and growing speculation that the Federal Reserve might soon ease its monetary policy. The world’s largest cryptocurrency briefly touched $65,050 during Sunday’s trading session before pulling back to just below $64,000 on Monday. Bitcoin has risen over 10% since the past week, the largest increase since mid-July.

The crypto market took notice after Fed Chair Jerome Powell hinted at the possibility of lowering benchmark interest rates from their current two-decade highs. This signaled a potentially more favorable liquidity environment for global markets, sparking optimism among investors. Following Powell’s comments, Bitcoin prices soared, and ETFs saw a net inflow of $252 million, the largest in over a month.

Bitcoin’s market cap currently stands at $1.242 trillion, with the cryptocurrency maintaining a 56.3% dominance in the market. While the short-term outlook may seem uncertain, the long-term trend for Bitcoin and the broader crypto market remains positive.

With Bitcoin prices still hovering around $60,000, the broader crypto market remains hot, keeping investor interest high. Buying Bitcoin directly is one option for those looking to ride the crypto wave. But if you’re seeking more conventional routes to gain exposure, tech giants like Block, Inc. (SQ) and PayPal Holdings, Inc. (PYPL) offer intriguing opportunities to tap into the cryptocurrency boom without diving headfirst into the volatility of digital currencies.

PayPal’s Digital Wallet Gets a Crypto Upgrade

PayPal is widely recognized as a leader in digital payments, with over 400 million users globally. Whether you’ve used it to shop online or send money to a friend, PayPal has become a trusted name in secure digital transactions. Beyond its core offerings, the company owns Xoom, an international money transfer business, and Venmo, a peer-to-peer money app.

In 2020, PayPal entered the crypto space, allowing users to buy, sell, and hold crypto assets. Initially, customers couldn’t move their holdings off the platform, but that changed as the company evolved its crypto services. Today, users can seamlessly buy, transfer, and sell cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Bitcoin Cash within and outside of PayPal’s ecosystem. This move has firmly positioned PYPL as a crypto adopter among fintech giants.

While PayPal’s earnings reports don’t always spotlight its crypto activities, the numbers tell an impressive story. In the second quarter, PYPL reported revenue of $7.89 billion, surpassing expectations and reflecting a 9% increase year-over-year. The company’s peer-to-peer payments grew for the first time in three years, with Venmo leading the charge with an 8% increase.

Although PayPal doesn’t disclose specific crypto holdings, its total payment volume grew 11% to $416.8 billion, with non-GAAP net income rising 28% from the prior-year quarter to $1.24 billion. Also, the company’s non-GAAP EPS stood at$1.19, up 36% year-over-year.

Moreover, PayPal’s stablecoin, PYUSD, has gained significant traction, reaching a market capitalization of over $1 billion just a year after its launch. This impressive growth explains why the company isn’t shouting about its crypto ventures from the rooftops; its success in the space speaks for itself.

For investors, there’s more good news. PYPL has increased its planned share buybacks from $5 billion to at least $6 billion this year, a move likely to boost the value of remaining shares. With its massive scale and strong user base, PayPal is well-positioned to bridge the gap between traditional finance and the rapidly evolving crypto ecosystem.

As the company continues to integrate crypto into its offerings, there’s potential for shares to soar even higher. If you’re bullish on the intersection of fintech and crypto, PayPal is definitely a stock to watch.

Block, Inc. (SQ) Shows High Crypto Ambitions

Block, formerly known as Square, has established itself in the fintech space, and its crypto ambitions are front and center. The company, which operates through its Square platform and the peer-to-peer app Cash App, has fully embraced the blockchain revolution.

Cash App is SQ’s direct competitor to Venmo, allowing its 50 million users to engage in various crypto transactions. But Block isn’t stopping there. It’s leveraging its Square platform to accept cryptocurrency payments, offering merchants a seamless way to integrate digital assets into their transactions.

On top of that, the company is driving innovation through its TBD and Spiral divisions, which are focused on creating open-source tools to accelerate blockchain adoption. Even its music streaming service, Tidal, is exploring blockchain for copyright management, potentially transforming how the industry handles royalties.

Despite a 16% decline in stock price year-to-date, driven by concerns over revenue growth and macroeconomic pressures, the company remains focused on long-term crypto initiatives. SQ’s second quarter results were a mix of ups and downs, with revenue of $6.16 billion falling short of the Street’s estimate of $6.30 billion but an adjusted EPS surge of over 132% year-over-year to $0.93, far exceeding analysts’ forecasts.

The company reported a net income of $189.87 million compared to a loss of $105.38 million in the previous year. Block has also been actively returning capital to shareholders, announcing a $3 billion share buyback program and repurchasing over $390 million in the second quarter alone.

While Block’s top line has been inconsistent, its strong financial footing and deep involvement in Bitcoin initiatives make it a compelling option for long-term investors. If you believe in the growth of crypto, Block offers a unique and multifaceted exposure that few other stocks can match.

Is TOST Stock TOAST? 3 Strong Contenders to Invest In

Posted on by The INO.com Team

With the pandemic firmly in the rearview mirror, Americans have gone above and beyond to compensate for the years spent indoors with out-of-home experiences. This has naturally been accompanied by a lot of eating out and ordering in. Hence, it’s understandable why cloud-based restaurant technology company Toast, Inc. (TOST) took the (retrospectively ill-fated) decision to capitalize on the increased demand by adding a processing fee of $0.99 on all online orders over $10.

However, with persistent inflation that the Fed has been trying to tame for more than a year, consumers who have been cutting back elsewhere to spend on outdoor experiences weren’t too thrilled, to put it mildly.

The fee that went into effect on July 10 applied to consumers directly while bypassing the underlying restaurant, whose patrons hardly know the company that offers fully integrated point-of-sale (POS) systems. Moreover, the restaurants' reputation, which had to bear the brunt of the unilateral nature of the charges they were cut out of, was being negatively impacted.

The consequent backlash was so prompt and intense that TOST’s management was compelled to reverse its decision. The company’s CEO Chris Comparato said, “We made the wrong decision, and following a careful review, including the additional feedback we received, the fee will be removed from our Toast digital ordering channels.”

However, the company’s attempt to repair and restore long-standing relationships with 85,000 disgruntled restaurant locations and enterprise-level clients to prevent losing them to Shift4 Payments, Inc. (FOUR) and Block, Inc. (SQ) has made it fall out of favor with its shareholders. The news of TOST’s course reversal was greeted by an intraday slump of as much as 11%.

Given that, in the short term, TOST was leaving a lot of money on the table by foregoing fees worth hundreds of millions with a gross margin close to 100%, investors' drastic market reaction and reassessment is understandable.

Although the stock price has recovered by more than 2% since then, it might not be the end of TOST’s recent troubles. Its shenanigans have attracted the threat of litigation from at least two law firms: J. Klein, Esq. (The Klein Law Firm) and Levi & Korsinsky, LLP.

While it remains to be seen how TOST will emerge from its recent troubles when the dust settles, here are a few alternatives investors could consider to give the unfolding drama a wide berth.

VMware, Inc. (VMW)

VMW provides multi-cloud services for all apps that enable digital with enterprise control. Through its portfolio spanning application modernization, cloud management, cloud infrastructure, networking, security, and anywhere workspaces, the company forms a digital foundation for customers to build, run, manage, connect, and protect their workloads.

On June 29, VMW announced that it is joining forces with AMD, Samsung, and members of the RISC-V Keystone community to simplify the development and operations of confidential computing applications.

For the fiscal first quarter that ended May 5, VMW’s revenue increased by 6.1% year-over-year to come in at $3.28 billion, while its non-GAAP operating income increased by 6.2% year-over-year to $819 million. Consequently, the company’s non-GAAP net income increased by 18.8% and 16.4% year-over-year to $644 million, or $1.49 per share.

Analysts expect VMW’s revenue and EPS for the fiscal second quarter to increase 3.6% and 4.9% year-over-year to $3.46 billion and $1.72, respectively. For the entire fiscal, both revenue and EPS are expected to increase by 4.7% and 5.4% year-over-year to $13.97 billion and $6.89, respectively.

CSG Systems International, Inc. (CSGS)

CSGS primarily serves the communications industry in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia Pacific by providing revenue management, digital monetization, customer engagement, and payment solutions.

On July 19, CSGS announced the completion of its digital transformation project with Airtel Africa. CSGS’ unified revenue management solution has enabled its Client to streamline processes across its business, minimize costs and shorten time to market while delivering experiences that drive customer loyalty and sustainable business growth in wireless.

On June 22, CSGS announced that PLDT, the Philippines’ largest fully integrated telco company, would be expanding its two-decade partnership with the company as the latter embraces the power of the cloud to bring its business into the future and transform its customer experience, particularly for its Enterprise unit.

Analysts expect CSGS’ revenue for the fiscal year 2023 to increase by 6.1% year-over-year to $1.08 billion, while its EPS is expected to come in at $3.54. Both revenue and EPS are expected to increase by a further 4.8% and 10.3% year-over-year during the next fiscal to come in at $1.13 billion and $3.90, respectively.

Sapiens International Corporation N.V. (SPNS)

Headquartered in Israel, SPNS provides software solutions that cater to the financial services sector. With a portfolio consisting of Life, Pension, Annuity, and Retirement Solutions, the company’s offerings primarily serve the insurance sector.

On July 13, SPNS announced the expansion of its relationship with LocalTapiola Life (LT), Finland’s fourth-largest life insurer. The expanded partnership will include Sapiens Cloud Services for ten years.

This underscores SPNS’ earlier agreement to implement LT’s core system transformation by replacing its current eight separate Policy Administration Systems with Sapiens CoreSuite for Life and Pensions.

On June 22, SPNS announced that it has significantly strengthened its presence in DACH countries as it furthers its strategy to expand business and provide more innovative technology to the region’s insurance market.

On June 6, SPNS announced that Penn National Insurance has selected Sapiens ReinsurancePro solution as a part of its multiyear legacy modernization and automation initiative, including the use of Sapiens cloud services for a seamless and secure hosting experience.

Ahead of its August 2 earnings release, SPNS’s revenue and EPS for the fiscal second quarter are expected to increase 6.4% and 18.5% year-over-year to $126.19 million and $0.32, respectively. The company met or surpassed its consensus EPS estimates in three of the four quarters.