Does your investment criteria include “legacy fintechs getting pantsed by Apple Pay in real time?” Buddy, I’ve got a ticker for you…

Happy earnings season to everyone except for the folks currently shaking at their desks inside PayPal HQ. Elon’s old flame just got charged back to the tune of roughly 17% off the stock, after their numbers revealed they don’t know what the f*** they’re doing.

The official excuse was a 2026 profit outlook that made their shareholders want to jump off a cliff. The real story was much simpler: the board looked around, rolled their eyes, and essentially said, “Yeah… this isn’t working,” before hitting the eject button on CEO Alex Chriss. Translation: thanks for your service, please leave your badge and Venmo handle at the door.

Into the blast zone steps Enrique Lores, currently running HP, who’s being air-dropped into PayPal on March 1. Until then, CFO Jamie Miller gets to play interim firefighter, holding the hose while the house is still very much on fire. The board didn’t bother putting lipstick on it either, saying the pace of change and execution under Chriss wasn’t cutting it. In other words: “we asked you to turn the ship faster and you hit the iceberg instead.”

The numbers didn’t exactly help his case. Revenue came in at $8.68 billion, missing expectations by a mile. Adjusted earnings landed at $1.23 per share, also a miss. Total payment volume grew 6% on a currency-neutral basis to $475 billion, which is fine, but about as inspiring as a Ray Dalio speech. This was supposed to be a holiday quarter… the one stretch where demand usually does the work for you. PayPal still couldn’t get out of its own way.

The part that really scared the pants off investors was branded checkout. PayPal’s higher-margin superstar managed just 1% growth, down from 6% a year ago, and that’s when the “wait… is PayPal actually cooked?” questions started flying. Management pointed to weak U.S. retail, international headwinds, and tough comparisons. Investors heard something much simpler: people are tapping Apple Pay and moving on with their lives. 

(Source: CNBC)

Competition from Apple and Google has been the quiet horror movie playing in the background of this stock for years… and now the monster is finally on screen.

Zooming out, PayPal now expects flat to low-single-digit profit growth, while Wall Street was modeling closer to 8%. That gap is why the stock got beat like a red-headed stepchild. This is no longer a growth story. It’s a prove-you’re-still-relevant story. Needless to say, incoming CEO Enrique Lores is gonna have his work cut out for him.

Good luck, king. You’re gonna need it.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News holds positions in Apple and Google as mentioned in the article.