Afterpay shares soar 300% in six weeks

Investors have shrugged off any concerns the coronavirus crisis will bring down Afterpay with the stock almost entirely recovering from a market pounding to reach near record highs.

Shares in Afterpay soared by nearly 25% on Monday after Chinese tech behemoth Tencent, owner of messaging app We Chat, bought a 5% stake in the Buy Now, Pay Later pioneer.

Afterpay was a victim of the COVID-19 fuelled market rout in late March and experienced a decline in the order of 75%.

If you bought $1000 of Afterpay stock on March 23, 2020, your investment would be worth $4056  when the bells rang on May 5th, a mere six weeks later.

Julia Lee, the chief investment officer at Burman Invest, says Afterpay has resonated with a broad range of people.

“It’s not only resonated with Millenials, but there’s also been great new scores of retailers who have signed up for the platform,”

“We did see Tencent’s chief strategy officer coming to say that Afterpay’s attractive business model aligns well with consumer trends and Tencent’s looking forward to a deep and long term investment,”

“This wasn’t just an investment, perhaps it could be a collaboration as well, taking the best of both worlds and perhaps taking some of the western brands into China and some of the Chinese brands into the western world,”

Click PLAY to hear Julia Lee speak with Brooke Corte: