PYPL price vs TTM EPS vs P/E multiple — last ~3 years (point-in-time aligned)
PayPal’s “dead‑money” stretch turns out to be a valuation story, not an earnings shortfall: over the roughly three‑year window trailing EPS rose about 125.7% while the trailing P/E collapsed ~71.3%, even as the share price declined. That divergence — growing per‑share earnings versus steep multiple compression — is the central tension the analysis below unpacks.
I aligned point‑in‑time TTM EPS (quarterly fundamentals with a 60‑day post‑report lag) to daily prices across 752 trading days and decomposed price ≈ P/E × EPS using multiplicative and log attribution. The full report shows the calculations, charts, and robustness checks that support the finding: PayPal’s per‑share earnings materially improved; the price drop is overwhelmingly explained by de‑rating.
For PYPL over the past ~3 years, is the dead-money slog actually an earnings problem, or pure multiple compression — has trailing EPS kept grinding higher while the price-to-earnings multiple collapsed? Thesis: EPS has risen materially over the window while the stock went nowhere, so essentially the entire de-rating is the market paying less for each dollar PayPal earns rather than the dollars drying up.
How this was measured
Resampled PYPL minute bars to daily closes and limited to the last ~36 months. From PYPL_fundamentals (quarterly), computed TTM EPS as the rolling sum of the last 4 eps_diluted values, applying a 60-day post-fiscal-period lag to approximate report-release timing. Forward-filled TTM EPS onto the daily price calendar and formed daily P/E where TTM EPS>0. Compared start-to-end changes and decomposed price as P ≈ PE × EPS using both multiplicative and log-attribution views.
The key numbers
Reading the numbers
Over the ~3‑year window, trailing EPS rose about 125.7% (from $2.3514 to $5.3070) while the share price fell ~35.2% (from $66.38 to $43.01); the P/E multiple collapsed from 28.23× to 8.10×.
The charts
This indexed chart puts price and trailing EPS on the same 100‑start scale: price ends at 64.7973 while TTM EPS ends at 225.6953. The key visual is the widening gap — EPS more than doubled while price sits well below start — which tells you the earnings line has been climbing even as the market price did not. That pattern supports the idea that the problem isn’t shrinking earnings.
The daily P/E line falls from 28.2284 at the window start to 8.1044 at the end, with a low near 7.6652 and a long‑run mean around 16.13×. What to watch is the persistent slide into single‑digit territory: that compression in the multiple is precisely the mechanical route by which a rising EPS can coexist with a falling price. In short, the multiple collapsed dramatically over the period.
This multiplicative decomposition shows end/start factors: total price 0.648, TTM EPS 2.257, P/E multiple 0.2871. Because price = EPS × P/E, the EPS factor >2 offsets part of the price drop but the P/E factor being only 0.2871 drives the net decline to 0.648. The tiny P/E bar is the eye‑catcher: the fall in how much the market pays per dollar of earnings explains the price move, not an earnings shortfall.
Start vs End snapshot and attribution
| metric | start_date | end_date | start_value | end_value | change_pct | factor_end/start |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price (USD) | 2023-06-30 | 2026-06-30 | 66.38 | 43.01 | -0.352 | 0.648 |
| TTM EPS (USD) | 2023-06-30 | 2026-06-30 | 2.3514 | 5.307 | 1.257 | 2.257 |
| P/E multiple | 2023-06-30 | 2026-06-30 | 28.23 | 8.1 | -0.7129 | 0.2871 |
TTM EPS by effective release date (last 12 points)
| effective_date | ttm_eps_usd |
|---|
The takeaway
Yes — this is almost entirely multiple compression, not an EPS collapse. Over the window TTM EPS rose from $2.3514 to $5.307 (+125.70%) while the share price fell from $66.38 to $43.01 (-35.20%); the trailing P/E shrank from 28.23× to 8.10× (-71.29%). The multiplicative view shows an EPS factor of 2.257 × a PE factor of 0.287 = price factor 0.648, so EPS growth was more than offset by de‑rating. On a log decomposition the model assigns about -188% to EPS and +288% to PE, i.e., PE compression dominates the price move. This is a strong, unambiguous signal across 752 trading days — the magnitudes are large, not a coin flip. Practical takeaway: PayPal’s per‑share earnings have materially improved; the “dead‑money” is the market paying much less per dollar earned, not a drying up of EPS.
The fine print
- Window is fixed to 2023-06-30 → 2026-06-30 for data availability; earlier performance is excluded.
- TTM EPS uses diluted eps with a 60-day post-quarter lag to approximate release timing; exact release dates may vary.
- Days with non-positive or missing TTM EPS are excluded from the P/E series, creating gaps if EPS briefly dips.
- This is a price-only view: it ignores total‑return effects such as dividends or buybacks; EPS is per‑share and reflects dilution.