December 9, 2025
Waystar Holding Corp (NASDAQ: WAY), the healthcare payments software provider, is back in the spotlight after a sharp sell-off pushed the stock to fresh 52-week lows on Tuesday, even as Wall Street analysts continue to project substantial upside over the next 12 months.
Waystar Stock Today: Fresh Lows in a Volatile Session
In Tuesday’s trading, Waystar shares slid to the low-$31 range, marking a new 52-week low and extending a multi-month downtrend. Intraday, the stock traded between roughly $31 and $33, down about 6% on the day and hovering just above its one-year low around $30.75. [1]
According to real-time data, Waystar now carries a market capitalization of around $6 billion, trades at close to 50 times trailing twelve-month earnings, and roughly 19 times forward estimates, underscoring that investors are still paying a growth multiple despite the recent pullback. [2]
The sell-off caps a difficult six-month stretch: Waystar’s shares are down nearly 20% over that period, even though the stock still shows a positive total return over the past year. [3]
What Triggered Today’s Headlines?
Several developments converged around Waystar on December 9, 2025:
1. Barclays cuts its price target, but keeps an “Overweight” rating
Barclays analyst Saket Kalia reaffirmed an Overweight rating on Waystar but lowered the firm’s price target from $56 to $42, a 16% reduction. [4]
Even after the cut, the new target still implies notable upside from the current low-$30s share price. The report follows a string of bullish initiations and target hikes over the past few months:
- Freedom Capital Markets: Hold, $40 target
- BMO Capital: Outperform, $47 target
- Needham: Buy, $46 target
- Citigroup: Buy, target raised from $47 to $49
- Mizuho: Outperform, target raised to $50 [5]
2. MarketBeat highlights a broad “Buy” consensus
A separate MarketBeat note published on December 9 reports that Waystar has earned an average rating of “Buy” from 16 research firms, including 12 Buy and 3 Strong Buy recommendations, with only a single Hold. The average 12-month price target cited is about $48.08. [6]
The same report points out that shares opened near $33.21, leaving the stock trading well below analyst targets and not far above its one-year low. [7]
3. Bain Capital trims a large position
Also dated December 9, a MarketBeat piece outlines that Bain Capital Investors LLC reduced its stake in Waystar by 17% during the second quarter, selling roughly 3.7 million shares and bringing its holdings to just over 18 million shares. Even after the sale, Bain still owns about 10.4% of the company, and Waystar remains its second-largest holding at around 23.5% of the portfolio. [8]
Large sponsor sell-downs often create an “overhang” in the eyes of investors, even when the underlying business is performing well.
4. Stock breaks to a new 52-week low
Investing.com flagged Waystar’s move to a new 52-week low around $31.24, just above its absolute low of $30.75. Their data characterizes the stock as trading below estimated fair value, with a positive one-year total return but an 18% decline over the past six months. [9]
The combination of a target cut, continued sponsor selling, and negative price momentum appears to be weighing on sentiment in the short term.
Fundamentals: A Growing Healthcare Payments Platform
Behind the volatility, Waystar is still posting double-digit growth. The company operates a cloud-based healthcare payments platform that helps providers handle financial clearance, patient billing, claims management, denial recovery, revenue capture, and analytics. [10]
Key fundamental snapshots from recent filings and company data:
- Revenue (TTM): approx. $1.04 billion
- Net income (TTM): about $111 million
- 2024 revenue growth: roughly 19% year-over-year, with losses narrowing compared with 2023 [11]
- Q3 2025 performance: third-quarter revenue up about 12% year-over-year to roughly $269 million, with adjusted EPS around $0.37 and an 11% net margin, according to analyst summaries of the company’s release. [12]
Following the Q3 report, firms including Canaccord Genuity and Mizuho raised their price targets to $54 and $50 respectively, citing strong demand in revenue cycle management and solid execution. [13]
Waystar’s inclusion in the S&P SmallCap 600 index in September 2025 was another vote of confidence in the company’s scale and liquidity, potentially bringing incremental demand from index funds and small-cap mandates. [14]
Ownership, Insider Activity and Secondary Offerings
Waystar has seen a steady stream of institutional activity in 2025:
- Seven Grand Managers LLC increased its stake by 20% to 600,000 shares (about 0.34% of the company), valued at roughly $24.5 million and representing around 2.9% of its portfolio. [15]
- Quantbot Technologies LP trimmed its position by 12.8% to 261,654 shares, about 0.15% of Waystar, worth around $10.7 million. [16]
- Bain Capital and other large holders have been net sellers as they gradually monetize positions following the company’s 2024 IPO and subsequent secondary offerings. [17]
Insider selling has also been notable:
- MarketBeat and other filings show insiders have sold more than 4.4 million shares over the last three months, worth over $170 million, though insiders still own just over 4% of the company. [18]
- In late November, Chief Marketing Officer Melissa F. (“Missy”) Miller sold 3,400 shares at $37 (about $125,800) under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan, while simultaneously exercising options at an $18.19 strike. She continues to hold more than 190,000 shares, including unvested RSUs. [19]
On top of that, private-equity backer EQT completed a large public offering of Waystar shares in September 2025, raising roughly $705.8 million in gross proceeds and monetizing about $304.5 million of its stake. [20] Earlier in the year, Waystar also priced a 20-million-share public offering at $40 per share. [21]
For public investors, these transactions don’t change the underlying business, but they do increase the free float and can pressure the share price as large holders sell into the market.
Street View: Strong Buy Consensus, Targets Clustered Around $48–$50
Despite today’s weakness, analyst sentiment remains overwhelmingly positive.
Across multiple aggregators:
- MarketBeat reports a Buy consensus from 16 Wall Street analysts, with 1 Hold, 12 Buy and 3 Strong Buy ratings, and an average 12-month price target of $48.08, implying more than 50% upside from around $31. [22]
- Investing.com shows a Strong Buy consensus from 19 analysts, all rating the stock a buy, with an average price target near $48.74 (high $54, low $40), representing an estimated upside of roughly 57%. [23]
- StockAnalysis similarly lists a “Strong Buy” consensus, with an average target around $47.29, or more than 50% above the latest price. [24]
A Nasdaq feature published earlier this month highlighted that the mean analyst target of $49.67 implied about 35% upside from a then-recent price near $36.91, with individual 12-month targets ranging from $44 to $54. [25]
Overlaying today’s Barclays reduction, the Street’s target range now largely sits between $40 and $54, still substantially above the current trading level even at the low end. [26]
Quant and Technical Forecasts: Bearish Signals, Bullish Projections
While fundamental analysts are broadly bullish, quantitative and technical models paint a more cautious near-term picture.
CoinCodex’s model, updated on December 9, labels Waystar’s overall technical sentiment as “Bearish,” with 22 out of 22 indicators flashing negative signals. Short-term moving averages (21- and 50-period SMAs and EMAs) sit well above the current price, generating “sell” readings. [27]
Even so, the same model projects:
- A modest move higher to around $31.9–31.5 over the coming weeks
- A 12-month target near $40.73, implying roughly 30% upside
- A longer-term pathway to the low-$60s by 2030, more than doubling from current levels, with algorithmic projections stretching past $60 over the very long term [28]
These forecasts are inherently speculative and based on historical patterns, not guarantees. Still, they echo the broad theme seen in fundamental research: current prices are well below most forward-looking estimates.
Key Themes and Risks for Investors Watching WAY
For investors tracking Waystar — whether or not they choose to act — several themes stand out from today’s news and recent disclosures:
- Growth vs. Valuation
Waystar is growing revenue at a double-digit clip in a structurally important niche: streamlining payment flows in healthcare. At the same time, even after the sell-off, the stock trades at a high trailing P/E multiple, and much of the bullish case relies on continued execution and earnings growth. [29] - Sponsor and Insider Supply
Repeated secondary offerings, private-equity sell-downs, and ongoing insider selling have increased free float and may continue to pressure the stock in the short term, regardless of fundamentals. [30] - Analyst Optimism vs. Market Skepticism
Nearly all covering analysts rate Waystar a buy and see 30–50% upside over 12 months, but the market is currently pricing in more cautious expectations, as reflected in the 52-week low and bearish technical profile. [31] - Execution in a Competitive Sector
Revenue cycle management and healthcare fintech are crowded spaces. The bullish narrative assumes Waystar continues to out-innovate rivals, expand margins, and deepen its relationships with health systems — something the Q3 beat and analyst upgrades suggest is happening so far, but which will need to be repeated quarter after quarter. [32]
Bottom Line
On December 9, 2025, Waystar Holding Corp finds itself in an unusual position: the stock has just printed a new 52-week low, big shareholders and insiders have been trimming positions, and technical indicators are flashing red — yet Wall Street’s fundamental analysts remain overwhelmingly positive, with average price targets clustered near $48–$50, far above the current low-$30s share price. [33]
References
1. stockanalysis.com, 2. stockanalysis.com, 3. au.investing.com, 4. www.gurufocus.com, 5. www.gurufocus.com, 6. www.marketbeat.com, 7. www.marketbeat.com, 8. www.marketbeat.com, 9. au.investing.com, 10. stockanalysis.com, 11. stockanalysis.com, 12. www.investing.com, 13. www.investing.com, 14. stockanalysis.com, 15. www.marketbeat.com, 16. www.marketbeat.com, 17. www.marketbeat.com, 18. www.marketbeat.com, 19. www.investing.com, 20. eqtgroup.com, 21. www.nasdaq.com, 22. www.marketbeat.com, 23. www.investing.com, 24. stockanalysis.com, 25. www.nasdaq.com, 26. www.gurufocus.com, 27. coincodex.com, 28. coincodex.com, 29. stockanalysis.com, 30. www.marketbeat.com, 31. www.marketbeat.com, 32. www.investing.com, 33. stockanalysis.com
