What happened
Shares of Brazilian fintech company Nu Holdings (NU -0.70%) traded nearly 7% lower as of 1:30 p.m. ET Monday, as broader markets struggled amid continued concerns over inflation and the Federal Reserve's shifting outlook.
So what
Nu is an extremely fast-growing digital banking app that has significantly disrupted the Latin American banking market, with its highly digitized and low-fee banking products. The company has rapidly acquired more than 48 million users and is backed by big names like Berkshire Hathaway, Sequoia Capital, and Tiger Global Management.
Image source: Getty Images.
Nu seems to be struggling like a lot of tech stocks today that are dealing with higher inflation and near-term macro policies that will attempt to rein in that inflation. Earlier this month, Brazil's Institute of Geography and Statistics announced that inflation had reached a six-year high, surpassing 10%, largely due to surging fuel prices.
Paulo Guedes, the economic minister of Brazil, recently said publicly that when it comes to inflation, central bankers in Western economies have been "sleeping at the driver wheel."
Now what
The Federal Reserve has certainly changed its stance toward inflation in recent moves and seems to be preparing to combat it.
But when Nu went public at the end of December with a valuation of more than $40 billion and then rose to more than a $50 billion market cap, I wrote that I thought the stock was too high and that investors would have a chance to get in lower. Now at a $33 billion market cap, the valuation looks a lot better and is actually similar to what Berkshire Hathaway invested at.
There could be some more pain to come for fintech and tech stocks, but this is a company that is rapidly disrupting the Latin American banking market. I would like to buy the stock a bit lower, personally, but am much more interested in it now.
