Invest better with The Motley Fool. Get stock recommendations, portfolio guidance, and more from The Motley Fool's premium services.
One of StoneCo's rivals just announced a big competitive threat.
*Average returns of all recommendations since inception. Cost basis and return based on previous market day close.
Motley Fool Returns
Market-beating stocks from our flagship service.
Calculated by average return of all stock recommendations since inception of the Stock Advisor service in February of 2002. Returns as of 2025-08-29 03:35:58.912548.
Discounted offers are only available to new members. Stock Advisor list price is $199 per year.
Calculated by Time-Weighted Return since 2002. Volatility profiles based on trailing-three-year calculations of the standard deviation of service investment returns.
Shares of Brazilian fintech company StoneCo (STNE +0.05%), which gained notoriety in recent months after being added to Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio, are plummeting today. As of 10:45 a.m. EDT, the stock was down nearly 25%.
Generally speaking, moves like this are often seen after earnings announcements, but StoneCo isn't set to report earnings again for another couple months.
Image source: Getty Images.
In this case, the plunge appears to be triggered by a move from a rival company. Itau Unibanco Holding SA (ITUB +0.02%), a large Brazilian bank, said that it will begin to advance credit card payments to small and medium-sized merchants.
Itau's card-processing unit, Rede, will pay merchants in just two days, much faster than the 30-day industry standard. This could certainly put pressure on other payment processors in the Brazilian market, including StoneCo.
It's not uncommon for larger, established companies like Itau to try to increase competitive pressure on fast-growing, disruptive rivals (Itau is more than five times StoneCo's size by market cap). And it's worth pointing out that StoneCo has soared recently -- after today's drop, it's still up by more than 45% year to date, so it's not surprising that potentially negative news is producing a big pullback.
Even so, if StoneCo can figure out a way to compete with Itau's latest move, today's decline could be a good buying opportunity. If not, StoneCo's growth could certainly slow down.