Popular "buy now, pay later" installment loans provider Affirm completed its initial public offering on Wednesday, January 13. The stock trades on the Nasdaq under "AFRM."
Latest updates
Wednesday, January 13: Affirm wrapped its IPO at $49 per share, up from the previously upsized range of $41 to $44 per share, raising $1.2 billion for the company. Shares of “AFRM” opened at $90.90 and skyrocketed to $103 per share during its first trading day.
Monday, January 11: Affirm increased its price range for its IPO to $41 to $44 per share, meaning the company stands to raise more than $1 billion in the offering. The deal is expected to close on Tuesday, January 12 and the company’s stock will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “AFRM” on Wednesday, January 13.
Tuesday, January 5: Affirm announced that it intends to offer 24.6 million shares at a range of between $33 and $38 per share.
Tuesday, December 15: Affirm announced that it has postponed its IPO until January 2021 at the earliest. Sources close to the company reported that a flood of IPOs in December 2020 may have driven this decision.
Wednesday, November 18: Affirm filed with the SEC to go public on the Nasdaq under the ticker AFRM.
Friday, November 13: According to a Bloomberg report, Affirm could make its filing public as early as next week.
What we know about the Affirm IPO
The fintech pay-later platform Affirm wrapped its initial public offering, selling 24.6 million shares at $49 per share, raising over $1.2 billion and giving the company a market capitalization of $11.9 billion. The stock began trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol "AFRM," opening at $90.90 per share, jumping to $103 per share during the first trading day.
Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group and Allen & Co. were the senior bookrunners on the deal.
How to buy shares in Affirm
Before you can invest in Affirm, you'll need to open a brokerage account.
Compare share trading platforms. If you're a beginner, look for a platform with low commissions, expert ratings and investment tools to track your portfolio. Narrow down top brands with our comparison table.
Open and fund your brokerage account. Complete an application with your personal and financial details, like your ID and bank information. Fund your account with a bank transfer, credit card or debit card.
Search for Affirm. Find the stock by name or ticker symbol: AFRM. Research its history to confirm it's a solid investment against your financial goals.
Purchase now or later. Buy immediately with a market order or use a limit order to delay your purchase until Affirm reaches your desired price. To spread out your purchase, look into dollar-cost averaging, which smooths out buying at consistent intervals and amounts.
Decide on how many to buy. Weigh your budget against a diversified portfolio that can minimize risk through the market's ups and downs. You may be able to buy a fractional share of Affirm, depending on your broker.
Check in on your investment. Congratulations, you own a part of Affirm. Optimize your portfolio by tracking how your stock — and even the business — performs with an eye on the long term. You may be eligible for dividends and shareholder voting rights on directors and management that can affect your stock.
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What we know about Affirm’s balance sheet
San Francisco-headquartered Affirm has partnered with more than 6,500 merchants to offer its buy now, pay later services to over 6.2 million customers. And its financials paint an encouraging picture of new growth and diminishing losses.
For the three months ended September 30, 2020, Affirm reported $174 million in revenue and a net loss of just $15 million. The company reported $87 million in revenue and a net loss of $30 million for the three months ended September 30, 2019.
Affirm’s latest filing also says its gross merchandise volume grew by 77% year over year — a metric commonly used by e-commerce platforms in lieu of revenue figures to assess performance.
All told, Affirm’s balance sheet looks promising. It has yet to turn a steady profit, but it appears to be consistently narrowing the gap between its revenue and losses.
One potential hitch for investors to watch: On December 7, Capitol One announced it would not allow “buy now, pay later” transactions such as those Affirm offers on its credit cards. (Capitol One customers can still use debit cards or checks for such transactions.) The actual impact on Affirm isn’t clear.
How do similar companies perform?
It's impossible to predict how any stock will perform — and IPOs can be particularly volatile. But evaluating the performance of companies like Affirm can be useful in determining how the market is performing and whether now is a good time to invest in this industry.
Select a company to learn more about what they do and how their stock performs, including market capitalization, the price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio, price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio and dividend yield. While this list includes a selection of the most well-known and popular stocks, it doesn't include every stock available.
Company summary
GreenSky, Inc., a technology company, provides point-of-sale financing and payment solutions to merchants, consumers, and banks. It offers a proprietary technology infrastructure that supports the full transaction lifecycle, including credit application, underwriting, real-time allocation to bank partners, document distribution, funding, settlement, and servicing functions. The company was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. operates as a financial services company worldwide. It operates in four segments: Consumer & Community Banking (CCB), Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB), Commercial Banking (CB), and Asset & Wealth Management (AWM). The CCB segment offers deposit and investment products and services to consumers; lending, deposit, and cash management and payment solutions to small businesses; mortgage origination and servicing activities; residential mortgages and home equity loans; and credit card, payment processing, auto loan, and leasing services. The CIB segment provides investment banking products and services, including corporate strategy and structure advisory, and equity and debt markets capital-raising services, as well as loan origination and syndication; cash management and liquidity solutions; and cash securities and derivative instruments, risk management solutions, prime brokerage, and research. This segment also offers securities services, including custody, fund accounting and administration, and securities lending products for asset managers, insurance companies, and public and private investment funds. The CB segment provides financial solutions, including lending, treasury, investment banking, and asset management to small business, large and midsized corporations, local governments, and nonprofit clients; and commercial real estate banking services to investors, developers, and owners of multifamily, as well as to office, retail, industrial, and affordable housing properties. The AWM segment offers investment and wealth management services across equities, fixed income, alternatives, and money market fund asset classes; multi-asset investment management services; retirement products and services; and brokerage and banking services. The company also provides ATM, online and mobile, and telephone banking services. The company was founded in 1799 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Visa Inc. operates as a payments technology company worldwide. The company facilitates digital payments among consumers, merchants, financial institutions, businesses, strategic partners, and government entities. It operates VisaNet, a transaction processing network that enables authorization, clearing, and settlement of payment transactions. In addition, the company offers card products, platforms, and value-added services. It provides its services under the Visa, Visa Electron, Interlink, VPAY, and PLUS brands. The company was founded in 1958 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Synchrony Financial operates as a consumer financial services company in the United States. It delivers a range of specialized financing programs and consumer banking products to digital, retail, home, auto, travel, health, and pet industries. The company also offers private label credit cards, dual cards, general purpose co-branded credit cards, and small and medium-sized business credit products; and promotional financing for consumer purchases, such as private label credit cards and installment loans. In addition, it provides promotional financing to consumers for health, veterinary and personal care procedures, and services and products, such as dental, vision, audiology, and cosmetic; debt cancellation products; and deposit products, including certificates of deposit, individual retirement accounts, money market accounts, and savings accounts to retail and commercial customers, as well as accepts deposits through third-party securities brokerage firms. The company offers its credit products through programs established with a group of national and regional retailers, local merchants, manufacturers, buying groups, industry associations, and healthcare service providers; and deposit products through various channels, such as digital and print. Synchrony Financial was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.
MarketAxess Holdings Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates an electronic trading platform that enables fixed-income market participants to trade corporate bonds and other types of fixed-income instruments worldwide. It offers institutional investor and broker-dealer firms the access to global liquidity in U.S. investment-grade corporate bonds, emerging markets and high-yield bonds, Eurobonds, U.S. agency bonds, municipal bonds, leveraged loans, and other fixed-income securities. The company, through its Open Trading protocols, executes bond trades between and among institutional investor and broker-dealer clients in an all-to-all anonymous trading environment for corporate bonds. It also offers trading-related products and services, including Composite+ pricing and other market data products to assist clients with trading decisions; auto-execution and other execution services for clients requiring specialized workflow solutions; connectivity solutions that facilitate straight-through processing; and technology services to optimize trading environments. In addition, the company offers a range of pre-and post-trade services, such as trade matching, trade publication, regulatory transaction reporting, and market and reference data across a range of fixed-income and other products. MarketAxess Holdings Inc. was founded in 2000 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
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The value of any investment can go up or down depending on news, trends and market conditions. We are not investment advisers, so do your own due diligence to understand the risks before you invest.
Shannon Terrell is a writer for Finder who studied communications and English literature at the University of Toronto. On any given day, you can find her researching everything from equine financing and business loans to student debt refinancing and how to start a trust. She loves hot coffee, the smell of fresh books and discovering new ways to save her pennies.
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