Are These The Best Fintech Stocks To Buy In March 2021?
In good times and bad, the financial industry will likely continue to be a crucial service sector. Within the current tech age, the latest iteration of the industry focuses on financial technology or fintech. This is where fintech stocks come into play. After all, people still need to make transactions and pay for their daily necessities. If anything, the pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital payments which, conveniently, are contactless. With people around the globe heavily relying on fintech companies for their trading and payment services, the industry is booming. Whether it is brokerage firms or conventional online banking companies, investors have been flocking to the top fintech stocks.
For example, we could look at the likes of online broker Futu Holdings (NASDAQ: FUTU). As it stands, FUTU stock is looking at phenomenal gains of over 1,400% in the past year. Given that the pandemic saw many new retail investors looking to profit from the market, this growth makes sense. At the same time, we also have fintech giant Square (NYSE: SQ) who facilitates consumer transactions and offers merchant services. SQ stock has more than quadrupled in value over the past year. Seeing gains like this, investors would likely be searching for the best fintech stocks to buy now. Well, if you are one of them, here are four making waves lately.
4 Top Fintech Stocks To Buy [Or Sell] This Week
- FinVolution Group (NYSE: FINV)
- Sea Limited (NYSE: SE)
- Shift4 Payments Inc. (NYSE: FOUR)
- PayPal Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ: PYPL)
FinVolution Group
First up, we have leading Chinese fintech company, FinVolution. The company operates via its proprietary fintech platform, connecting underserved individual borrowers with financial institutions. In brief, FinVolution is a pioneer in China’s online consumer finance industry, developing innovative fintech. The company boasts deep industry knowledge in credit risk assessment, fraud detection, big data, and artificial intelligence. All of this is integrated to form FinVolution’s platform which features highly automated loan transaction services. The likes of which, FinVolution has employed to serve over 116 million users as of last year-end. More importantly, FINV stock nearly doubled in value during intraday trading yesterday on account of the company’s latest earnings release.
All in all, FinVolution reported solid figures across the board. For starters, the company posted a year-over-year net revenue surge of 50.3%. This was followed by a 20.6% increase in net profit over the same period. Moreover, the company saw a loan origination volume of over $3.2 billion throughout the quarter, exceeding FinVolution’s top-end estimates. CEO Feng Zhang cites the company’s core credit risk assessment capabilities as a key factor of its current momentum. The likes of which allow FinVolution to continue decreasing operating costs while increasing institutional funding partners. Could FINV stock be a fintech stock to watch now? You tell me.
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Sea Limited
Sea Limited is a consumer internet company that is in focus right now. To summarize, the company’s core services consist of digital entertainment, e-commerce, and digital financial service. Respectively they are Garena, Shopee, and SeaMoney. No doubt, a majority of consumers in the South East Asia region would be familiar with this tech giant’s offerings. Particularly, SeaMoney is a leading digital payment and financial service provider in the region. This paired with its massive Shopee e-commerce platform has positioned Sea Limited to benefit from current online shopping trends. Likewise, SE stock also seems to be attracting investors’ attention as it is up by over 450% in the past year.
In recent news, Sea Limited has been busy diversifying its investments. Last week, Bloomberg reported that the company is putting $1 billion into a new tech investment firm. At the helm of this new unit is former Hillhouse Capital partner David Ma. Namely, the firm will be looking towards investing in “fledgling tech companies” that could possibly synergize with its current offerings. Through this move, Sea Limited can continue to develop its existing services while searching for new growth areas. Given all of this, will you be adding SE stock to your watchlist?
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Shift4 Payments Inc.
Another fintech company to watch now would be Shift4. To begin with, the company provides integrated payment processing and tech solutions to its customers via a comprehensive omnichannel ecosystem. The likes of which extend beyond payments to accommodate a variety of commerce-enabling services. Notably, the company supports both Google (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) Pay as well.
With Shift4 catering to a wide array of businesses, it would stand to benefit from both the rise in e-commerce spending and restaurants reopening. As such, I could understand if investors would see FOUR stock as a safer fintech play to make now. This appears to be the case as FOUR stock surged by 14% and even hit a record high during yesterday’s trading session.
In fact, this movement does line up with Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) analyst Mike Colonnese’s latest update on the stock. In short, Colonnese massively upgraded FOUR stock from an underperform rating to a buy. He also lifted his price target from $72 to $94. According to the analyst, Shift4 is “well-positioned to see a sharp acceleration” this month. This would likely be a reference to how part of its clientele would make Shift4 a reopening stock to consider. Should this be the case, would now be the time to invest in FOUR stock? I’ll let you decide.
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PayPal Holdings Inc.
Next, we will be looking at fintech giant, PayPal. For the uninitiated, the company is a significant player in the online payments market, operating across the globe. With the third round of stimulus checks being approved, PYPL stock would be on investors’ radars yet again. Indeed, this is because it catered to millions of Americans by waiving stimulus check-cashing fees back in December. Despite almost tripling in value since the pandemic first hit last year, could PYPL stock continue to surge?
Well, PayPal seems to be hard at work bolstering its services across the board. Firstly, the company is planning to expand its “Pay in 4” service to Australian users later in June. Pay in 4 is a buy now, pay later installment feature that customers can opt for when paying for pricier items. Second, the company is also acquiring Tel Aviv-based digital asset solutions provider, Curv.
In doing so, it would be obtaining Curv’s cloud-based cryptocurrency security services. As PayPal continues to curate its services to meet shifting consumer demands, could PYPL stock be worth watching? Your guess is as good as mine.
