Despite a sizable drop in their stock price over the past several months, Block's (SQ 2.32%) long-term outlook is more favorable. In this video clip from "The Virtual Opportunities Show" on Motley Fool Live, recorded on March 22, Fool contributor Jose Najarro discusses some positive signs that will drive significant growth.
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Jose Najarro: I'm going to take a quick look at Square today in the fintech market. Let me just share my screen with you. Just start off with just a quick price. I always forget it's Block now no longer Square. Block is down about 49% from its all-time highs. One thing I do want to show first is fundamentally this is also a company that's a great place. We can see plenty of cash and short-term investments. They do have a nice amount of debt but they are positive in cash flow from operations.
They just recently acquired a company called Afterpay. Both fortunate and unfortunate, fortunate for the balance sheet to some extent it was an all-cash deal. Unfortunate to some investors where you see an increase of shares due to the acquisition. Why I believe Block has huge potential is first, I'm a huge believer of their Square gross profit, their seller ecosystem and this is probably my favorite thing about Square.
Obviously, there has been some major risks coming in with Square recently or Block is their gross profit. We can see quarter two, quarter three, quarter four not much growth they're starting to look pretty flat there. Right now we can see between their two main ecosystems, the Cash App. Cash App is the one that's really taking a slowdown and pulling back.
But we can see Square's gross profit, which is their seller ecosystem, continues to go at a nice steady uptrend and this is the one where I believe there's huge potential. Obviously, they both integrate and work well with each other they have a great synergy. But the Square gross profit, we can see from their most recent earnings, they're seeing their Square gross payment volume by seller size increase dramatically from all sellers, not just big sellers, but even those small sellers are still increasing dramatically.
The other thing is Square, is becoming this toolbox or it already is this toolbox, but it's becoming the toolbox that every other quarter they add more tools. Here they're showing that the sellers that are on Square are increasing the amount of products that are being used. I think one thing I mentioned earlier is it's a lot easier to throw away a tool than it is to throw away a whole toolbox and the more users and sellers that continue to grab more products, the harder is going to be for them to escape Square and we can see four-plus products continued to grow every year.
The other thing I mentioned is, right now, Square is still expanding globally. Earlier this year they finished their full launch in Spain and we can see the gross profit in markets outside of the United States only represents the most recent quarter 9% of their total gross profit. I do want to say for Square, I do believe this international expansion is going to be a huge driving force for their growth.
Like we saw previously, yes in the short-term, maybe the next few quarters this is no longer the growth story when you take a look at gross profit. But I do believe the Square gross profit is going to continue to see a nice, healthy uptrend. With a very strong balance sheet, this is one that's in my portfolio, one that I enjoy. From time to time, I don't mind dollar-cost averaging with this company.
