After a 2020 that included a big crash and then an even bigger recovery, 2021 has been more temperate by comparison, and the S&P 500 is sitting on a 24.7% gain year-to-date.
Some veteran investors would tell you it makes sense to buy shares of the top companies, even at a premium.
One option is to research great companies that happen to be trading at expensive valuations now and wait for a market crash to buy in on them.
In 2021, its rise has leveled off somewhat and the stock has only gained 6% but still trades at a price-to-earnings .
It also began Bitcoin trading, which it counts as revenue, and it accounted for a disproportionately high amount of total revenue growth last quarter.
Sellers, on the other hand, is successfully making a deeper dive into larger, mid-size businesses, which jumped from 28% of gross merchandise volume in Q3 2019 to 33% in 2021.
Square is making lots of investments in both arms of its platform, including the highly talked-about acquisition of buy now, pay later company Afterpay.
It’s clear investors like Square stock, especially considering its highly elevated P/E ratio.
Upstart became one of the hottest stocks this year when revenue exploded over the past few quarters and the company began to turn a profit.
Its model runs customer data through hundreds of data points to assess true risk, as compared to the traditional scoring model that puts potential clients into broad categories.
That includes $635 billion in car loans — a market that Upstart recently entered when it acquired Prodigy software in April — and it reaches 95% of the U.S.
In addition to the auto-loan acquisition, it has been adding bank clients, such as Four Corners Community Bank last month.
In the meantime, Upstart shares currently trade at high premium, with a whopping P/E ratio of 481.