Afterpay Limited is an Australian payments company best known for its buy now pay later (BNPL) service. In 2021, the company was acquired by US tech giant Square, Inc. (NYSE: SQ) which subsequently listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) under the ticker code SQ2. This means that you'll need to buy shares in Square to invest in its subsidiary Afterpay.
Afterpay was founded in 2014 in Australia and has since expanded into the United States, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain. As a strong contender in the digital payments and credit space, Afterpay has been a market favourite since it launched onto the stock market in 2016.
To buy shares listed in Australia such as Afterpay, you'll need to sign up to a broker with access to the ASX. Our table can help you compare share trading platforms and choose or you can see our list of the best share trading platforms in Australia. Then follow these steps.
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Valuing Afterpay stock is incredibly difficult, and any metric has to be viewed as part of a bigger picture of Afterpay's overall performance. However, analysts commonly use some key metrics to help gauge the value of a stock.
Afterpay's current share price divided by its per-share earnings (EPS) over a 12-month period gives a "trailing price/earnings ratio" of roughly 61x. In other words, Afterpay shares trade at around 61x recent earnings.
That's relatively high compared to, say, the P/E ratio for the ASX over the 12 months to December 2019 (32.14). The high P/E ratio could mean that investors are optimistic about the outlook for the shares or simply that they're over-valued.
Afterpay's "price/earnings-to-growth ratio" can be calculated by dividing its P/E ratio by its growth – to give 0.5267. A low ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer better value, while a higher ratio can be interpreted as meaning the shares offer worse value.
The PEG ratio provides a broader view than just the P/E ratio, as it gives more insight into Afterpay's future profitability. By accounting for growth, it could also help you if you're comparing the share prices of multiple high-growth companies.
Afterpay's EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) is $965.4 million (£0.0 million).
The EBITDA is a measure of a Afterpay's overall financial performance and is widely used to measure stock profitability.
| Revenue TTM | $23.5 billion |
|---|---|
| Operating margin TTM | 5.24% |
| Gross profit TTM | $6.1 billion |
| Return on assets TTM | 1.13% |
| Return on equity TTM | 3.5% |
| Profit margin | 2.9% |
| Book value | 31.252 |
| Market capitalisation | $60 billion |
TTM: trailing 12 months
N/AWe're not expecting Afterpay to pay a dividend over the next 12 months.
Over the last 12 months, Afterpay's shares have ranged in value from as little as $60.56 up to $130.305. A popular way to gauge a stock's volatility is its "beta".
Beta measures a share's volatility in relation to the market. The market (AU average) beta is 1, while Afterpay's is 2.492. This would suggest that Afterpay's shares are significantly more volatile than the average for this exchange and represent a higher risk.
Block, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, builds ecosystems focused on commerce and financial products and services in the United States and internationally. It operates through two segments, Square and Cash App. The Square segment offers commerce products for restaurants, appointments, retail, point of sale, online, online checkout, and invoices, as well as virtual terminals, risk and order managers, and payment and commerce application programming interfaces; managed payment services; software solutions; hardware products, such as registers, terminals, stands, and readers for contactless and chips; banking services consisting of lending, instant transfer, and checking and savings accounts; and full-service setup and support services. This segment also provides loyalty, marketing, team management, and payroll services; and gift cards. The Cash App segment offers financial tools within the mobile Cash App, including peer-to-peer payments, bitcoin, and stock investment brokerage; Cash App Card, a debit card; direct deposit, cash boost, and tax preparation services; and Afterpay, a buy now, pay later platform. This segment also provides Pay in 4, monthly payment solutions, advertising and affiliate, shop directory, and Cash App Pay services; and business accounts, and Afterpay and Afterpay Plus cards. In addition, the company operates TIDAL, a platform for musicians and fans; TBD, an open developer platform focused on making the decentralized financial world accessible; Bitkey, a self-custody bitcoin wallet; and Spiral, which focuses on bitcoin open source work. It serves businesses, sellers, and individuals through e-commerce and retail distribution channels. The company was formerly known as Square, Inc. and changed its name to Block, Inc. in December 2021. Block, Inc. was incorporated in 2009 and is based in Oakland, California.
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