If you have been closely watching shares of PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), you haven’t missed its 30.7% collapse year-to-date, with retail investor sentiment on Reddit turning sharply bearish. The fintech pioneer’s weekly sentiment score plunged to 37, down from a neutral 57.4 over the past month, as traders digested a brutal earnings miss and disappointing 2026 guidance. PayPal now trades at just $40.46, down 46.79% over the past year and hovering near its 52-week low of $38.88.
The catalyst for this meltdown was PayPal’s Q4 2025 earnings release on February 3, 2026, where the company reported revenue of $8.676 billion, missing estimates by $304 million, and EPS of $1.23, falling $0.08 short of consensus. The same day, PayPal announced Enrique Lores would replace outgoing CEO Alex Chriss, effective March 1, 2026, after the board expressed dissatisfaction with the “pace of change and execution.” The hope is that bringing fresh faces to the highest levels will energize the company and investors for the future.
Reddit Turns on PayPal After Execution Failures
On the other hand, online discussion has turned decisively negative. The most upvoted post on r/wallstreetbets declared “PayPal shares CLOBBERED in premarket” with 5,919 upvotes and 804 comments. Traders are citing legitimate concerns about PayPal’s competitive position and execution. The reasons for pessimism are stark:
- Branded checkout performance deteriorated, with management admitting execution “has not been where it needs to be”
- Former PayPal President David Marcus criticized the company’s defensive BNPL strategy, which handed market share to Klarna and Affirm (NASDAQ:AFRM)
- Daiwa Securities slashed its price target from $61 to $42, a 31% cut reflecting dimmed expectations
Can Lores and Automotive Payments Save PayPal?
PayPal is betting on two lifelines. The first is Lores, who delivered six consecutive quarters of revenue growth at HP (NYSE:HPQ), raising expectations for his March start date. The second is integration into UpdatePromise’s automotive service platform, embedding PayPal and Venmo into repair workflows. Analysts still see upside, with a consensus target of $51.88 implying 27% gains. But with PayPal trading at a 7.48x P/E and generating over $6 billion in expected free cash flow for 2026, this may be the last chance to prove the turnaround thesis before patience runs out.
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