Fiserv execs bet $1.5 million on a turnaround, and the stock pops

By Emily Bary

Two executives just bought stock in the S&P 500's weakest performer of the year

Fiserv shares have struggled this year rose on Wednesday.

Two Fiserv executives are putting their money where their mouths are as they bet that the beleaguered financial-services company can see a turnaround.

Chief Legal Officer Adam Rosman and Chief Financial Officer Paul Todd both made open-market purchases of Fiserv's stock (FISV) this week, sending a bullish signal to the market.

Rosman purchased about $500,000 worth of the stock on Tuesday, according to a filing put out later that day. Todd bought just over $1 million in stock on Monday, which he disclosed in an SEC filing the next day.

Shares of Fiserv, which offers payment-processing, mobile-banking and other services to its business customers, rose about 6% on Wednesday, for their largest one-day gain since June.

Insider stock purchases can be seen as upbeat indicators because they show executives backing their words and projections with their own money, implying they think shares look attractive at recent prices.

Fiserv shareholders have been starved for good news, as the stock has lost nearly 70% on the year. It's the worst performer in the S&P 500 SPX in 2025.

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The company in late October slashed its forecast for the year, shaving top-line growth expectations by more than half and dramatically reducing its profit outlook as well.

Fiserv had been benefiting from Argentine inflation that has since cooled down meaningfully, and the company's pricing moves in its Clover point-of-sale business backfired. Executives also acknowledged that cost-cutting moves went too far, hurting the company's ability to execute on new product offerings.

See more: Fiserv's stock plunges 40% on worst day ever. Outlook reset is deemed 'difficult to comprehend.'

"You kind of had the perfect storm hitting them all at once," Mizuho analyst Dan Dolev told MarketWatch last week. And, instead of acknowledging these changes earlier on, management "kept kicking the can down the road," leading to the eventual "kitchen-sink" outlook.

Fiserv now has to win back Wall Street's trust. As of the end of September, 31 of 35 analysts tracked by FactSet had bullish ratings on the stock. Now, just 14 of 36 analysts do.

"This might be the ultimate 'kitchen-sink' under the new management team, but we have lost confidence in the company's visibility into its financial metrics," Bernstein's Harshita Rawat wrote in her October downgrade.

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-Emily Bary

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12-03-25 1927ET