How to buy Peoples Financial Services stock

Peoples Financial Services Corp is a banks-regional business based in the US. Peoples Financial Services shares (PFIS) are listed on the NASDAQ and all prices are listed in US Dollars. Peoples Financial Services employs 408 staff and has a trailing 12-month revenue of around USD$84.7 million.

How to buy shares in Peoples Financial Services

1. Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
2. Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
3. Search for Peoples Financial Services. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: PFIS. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
4. Purchase now or later. Buy today with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Peoples Financial Services reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
5. Decide on how many to buy. Weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of Peoples Financial Services, depending on your broker.
6. Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Peoples Financial Services. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.

Peoples Financial Services share price

Use our graph to track the performance of PFIS stocks over time.

Peoples Financial Services shares at a glance

• Key figures

Information last updated 2021-01-20.

52-week range	USD$28.1919 - USD$47.4984
50-day moving average	USD$38.7258
200-day moving average	USD$37.4416
Wall St. target price	N/A
PE ratio	11.2054
Dividend yield	USD$1.44 (3.64%)
Earnings per share (TTM)	USD$3.559

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Is it a good time to buy Peoples Financial Services stock?

The technical analysis gauge below displays real-time ratings for the timeframes you select. This is not a recommendation, however. It represents a technical analysis based on the most popular technical indicators: Moving Averages, Oscillators and Pivots. Finder might not concur and takes no responsibility.

Technical Analysis of Peoples Financial Services Corp by TradingView

This chart is not advice or a guarantee of success. Rather, it gauges the real-time recommendations of three popular technical indicators: moving averages, oscillators and pivots. Finder is not responsible for how your stock performs.

Is Peoples Financial Services under- or over-valued?

Valuing Peoples Financial Services stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Peoples Financial Services's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.

Peoples Financial Services's P/E ratio

Peoples Financial Services's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 11x. In other words, Peoples Financial Services shares trade at around 11x recent earnings.

That's relatively low compared to, say, the trailing 12-month P/E ratio for the NASDAQ 100 at the end of 2019 (27.29). The low P/E ratio could mean that investors are pessimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're under-valued.

Peoples Financial Services financials

Revenue TTM	USD$84.7 million
Operating margin TTM	38.81%
Gross profit TTM	USD$84.5 million
Return on assets TTM	1.01%
Return on equity TTM	8.59%
Profit margin	30.94%
Book value	$43.304
Market capitalisation	USD$288 million

TTM: trailing 12 months

Shorting Peoples Financial Services shares

There are currently 44,741 Peoples Financial Services shares held short by investors – that's known as Peoples Financial Services's "short interest". This figure is 0.8% up from 44,394 last month.

There are a few different ways that this level of interest in shorting Peoples Financial Services shares can be evaluated.

Peoples Financial Services's "short interest ratio" (SIR)

Peoples Financial Services's "short interest ratio" (SIR) is the quantity of Peoples Financial Services shares currently shorted divided by the average quantity of Peoples Financial Services shares traded daily (recently around 10678.042959427). Peoples Financial Services's SIR currently stands at 4.19. In other words for every 100,000 Peoples Financial Services shares traded daily on the market, roughly 4190 shares are currently held short.

However Peoples Financial Services's short interest can also be evaluated against the total number of Peoples Financial Services shares, or, against the total number of tradable Peoples Financial Services shares (the shares that aren't held by "insiders" or major long-term shareholders – also known as the "float"). In this case Peoples Financial Services's short interest could be expressed as 0.01% of the outstanding shares (for every 100,000 Peoples Financial Services shares in existence, roughly 10 shares are currently held short) or 0.0066% of the tradable shares (for every 100,000 tradable Peoples Financial Services shares, roughly 7 shares are currently held short).

Such a low SIR usually points to an optimistic outlook for the share price, with fewer people currently willing to bet against Peoples Financial Services.

Find out more about how you can short Peoples Financial Services stock.

Peoples Financial Services share dividends

Dividend payout ratio: 35.85% of net profits

Recently Peoples Financial Services has paid out, on average, around 35.85% of net profits as dividends. That has enabled analysts to estimate a "forward annual dividend yield" of 3.64% of the current stock value. This means that over a year, based on recent payouts (which are sadly no guarantee of future payouts), Peoples Financial Services shareholders could enjoy a 3.64% return on their shares, in the form of dividend payments. In Peoples Financial Services's case, that would currently equate to about $1.44 per share.

While Peoples Financial Services's payout ratio might seem fairly standard, it's worth remembering that Peoples Financial Services may be investing much of the rest of its net profits in future growth.

Peoples Financial Services's most recent dividend payout was on 15 December 2020. The latest dividend was paid out to all shareholders who bought their shares by 27 November 2020 (the "ex-dividend date").

Have Peoples Financial Services's shares ever split?

Peoples Financial Services's shares were split on a 3:2 basis on 16 May 2003. So if you had owned 2 shares the day before before the split, the next day you'd have owned 3 shares. This wouldn't directly have changed the overall worth of your Peoples Financial Services shares – just the quantity. However, indirectly, the new 33.3% lower share price could have impacted the market appetite for Peoples Financial Services shares which in turn could have impacted Peoples Financial Services's share price.

Peoples Financial Services share price volatility

Over the last 12 months, Peoples Financial Services's shares have ranged in value from as little as $28.1919 up to $47.4984. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".

Beta is a measure of a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (NASDAQ average) beta is 1, while Peoples Financial Services's is 0.1292. This would suggest that Peoples Financial Services's shares are less volatile than average (for this exchange).

Peoples Financial Services overview

Peoples Financial Services Corp. operates as the bank holding company for Peoples Security Bank and Trust Company that provides various commercial and retail banking services. The company accepts money market, NOW, savings, individual retirement, demand deposit, and certificates of deposit accounts. It also provides residential real estate, automobile, manufactured housing, personal, and home equity loans; and commercial real estate, working capital, construction, small business administration, and agricultural loans, as well as loans for equipment and other commercial needs, and mineral rights. In addition, the company offers investment management, IRA trustee, estate administration, living and life insurance trust, trustee under will, guardianship, custodial/IRA custodial, and corporate trust services, as well as pension and profit sharing plans. Further, it provides investment portfolio management, estate and business succession planning, annuities, insurance, retirement plan, and tax planning, as well as education funding strategies; and securities and brokerage, and investor services. Additionally, the company offers small business checking and merchant money market accounts, online and telephone banking, business credit cards, merchant line of credit, and financial checkup services; and remote deposit capture, automatic clearing house transaction, cash management, automated teller machine, point of sale transaction, safe deposit box, night depository, direct deposit, and official check services. It serves business, non-profit, governmental, municipal agency, and professional customers, as well as retail customers through 28 full-service community banking offices located in Lackawanna, Lebanon, Lehigh, Luzerne, Monroe, Montgomery, Northampton, Susquehanna, Wayne, and Wyoming Counties of Pennsylvania, as well as Broome County of New York. Peoples Financial Services Corp. was founded in 1905 and is headquartered in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Frequently asked questions

• What percentage of Peoples Financial Services is owned by insiders or institutions?

  Currently 5.792% of Peoples Financial Services shares are held by insiders and 27.611% by institutions.

• How many people work for Peoples Financial Services?

  Latest data suggests 408 work at Peoples Financial Services.

• When does the fiscal year end for Peoples Financial Services?

  Peoples Financial Services's fiscal year ends in December.

• Where is Peoples Financial Services based?

  Peoples Financial Services's address is: 150 North Washington Avenue, Scranton, PA, United States, 18503

• What is Peoples Financial Services's ISIN number?

  Peoples Financial Services's international securities identification number is: US7110401053

• What is Peoples Financial Services's CUSIP number?

  Peoples Financial Services's Committee on Uniform Securities Identification Procedures number is: 711040105