What happened
The stock market was having a strong day early on Tuesday, with all three major indexes in the green. And PayPal Holdings (PYPL +0.66%) was a big outperformer, with shares up by more than 6% at 10:50 a.m. EST today.
So what
There isn't any company-specific news propelling PayPal today. Rather, it's likely due to a combination of two factors.
Image source: Getty Images.
First, without getting too deep into a discussion of how interest rates affect stocks, many tech-focused stocks have been hammered recently as Treasury yields have spiked higher. Today, we're seeing yields pull back a bit, which is helping to fuel a broad-based rally in the tech sector. This is also why the Nasdaq is the best performer of the three major stock indexes today, by a wide margin. But even after today's move, it's worth noting that PayPal is still down by more than 20% over the past few weeks as Treasury rates remain near their highest level in over a year.
A secondary factor helping to push PayPal higher today is the cryptocurrency market. Bitcoin (BTC 1.01%) is up by more than 6% over the past 24 hours. And since users of PayPal and Venmo, PayPal's person-to-person payments app, can buy and sell Bitcoin, higher cryptocurrency prices could help this part of the business.
Now what
The modest pullback in rates seems to be cooling investor fears about inflation and other rate-related negative catalysts. But PayPal still trades for significantly less than its recent highs, and the company has been delivering extremely strong performance figures in recent quarters. Patient long-term investors might want to look at the current situation as a buying opportunity in such a rock-solid and profitable fintech company.
