Block's 28% plunge in February leads fintech sell-off, while Stripe shows benefit of staying private
Fintech stocks plummeted in February, paced by Block's drop, but Stripe's valuation soared to a near-record high in the private market.
Stripe has once again shown why sometimes it's better to be private.
During a February sell-off for fintech stocks, Block plunged 28%, its steepest decline since 2023, alongside drops of 20% or more for PayPal and Coinbase and a 8% slide in shares of SoFi. Meanwhile, Stripe on Thursday announced a tender offer for employee shares at a $91.5 billion valuation, making the payments company significantly more valuable than any of its public market peers.
"In general, they benefit from being private because there's a handful of stocks that people want to buy and they trade at a premium to public valuations," said Larry Albukerk, founder of EB Exchange, which helps facilitate trades in shares of pre-IPO companies.
He said Stripe is part of an exclusive group of private companies, along with SpaceX, Anthropic and Anduril, which are all seeing sky-high demand from investors.
"For every one of those, there's 100 companies that don't get that kind of premium," Albukerk said.