Silicon Investor - Block, Inc. (formerly Square)

[Glenn Petersen] Block’s Cash App Hits 53 Million Monthly Active Users, Direct Deposits up 69% B...

Glenn Petersen — 5/5/2023 10:55:47 AM

Block’s Cash App Hits 53 Million Monthly Active Users, Direct Deposits up 69%

BY PYMNTS | MAY 5, 2023

Block, the parent company of Square, posted earnings results illustrating the evolution of a financial services ecosystem — with Cash App at the center.

A growing number of users, management said on the most recent earnings call, are using Cash App products and services, including depositing their paychecks directly to the Cash App Card.

Earnings materials from the company show that Cash App monthly active consumers during the quarter were up year on year, and reached 53 million in March, up 17%. In March, there were 2 million direct deposit actives and paycheck deposits totaled $2.5 billion, up 69% year over year.

More Transactions and Higher Inflows

Management noted that Cash App inflows per “transacting active” were $1,136, up 8% year over year and quarter over quarter, and overall inflows were $61 billion, up 27% year over year.

In the first quarter of 2023, per the company materials, Cash App business gross payment volume (GPV) was $4.9 billion, up 24% year over year. Those transactions are related to peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions received by business accounts and include P2P payments sent via credit cards.

Drilling down into Square’s GPV, by mix of sellers, the percentage of mid-market sellers — those sellers generating more than $500,000 in annualized GPV — was 38% of the $46.2 billion in GPV logged during the quarter, up from 35% last year. Management noted on the call that the larger seller market is underpenetrated, as Square has roughly 1% market share there, as measured in the United States alone.

Card-present GPV was up 21% year over year and card-not-present GPV was up 10% year over year, the company said.

Square loans facilitated roughly 113,000 loans totaling $1.1 billion in originations, gaining 46%.

Block Chief Financial Officer Amrita Ahuja said that during the first quarter of 2023, “we had 14 revenue streams across Square and Cash App that generated $100 million or more in annualized gross profit, up from 11 a year ago … our financial services products are a key driver of inflows in Cash App and help us build retentive relationships with our active, particularly Cash App Card.”

To that end, paycheck deposits continued to increase as a contribution of overall inflows totaling $2.5 billion in March or $30 billion on an annualized basis. The launch of Savings on Cash App this year, said Ahuja, has already garnered strong adoption, with 3 million “savings active” consumers adding funds to their savings balances at the end of April.

BNPL Gains Ground Too

Ahuja noted during the call that the company’s buy now, pay later (BNPL) platform generated $5.6 billion in volumes in the first quarter, an increase of 18% year over year inclusive of January 2022 volumes.

With some detail on credit metrics, she said that the loss on consumer receivables was 0.7% of GMV, an improvement year over year and quarter over quarter. Volumes in the BNPL segment are expected to be around 20% in April, up slightly from the 18% seen during the most recent quarter.

During a question-and-answer session with analysts, and in response to queries about how turmoil in the banking system might impact the Block/Square ecosystem, Ahuja said, “across our products and our partners, we are always focused on building redundancies wherever we can in addition to assessing potential future risk. So, we have a diverse set of products, and we build redundancies where we can, and we have a transparent approach to our partnership as we always have.”

And looking ahead, said CEO Jack Dorsey on the call in discussing the potential for further penetration in the retail, restaurants and beauty verticals, “the key differentiator to our mind is our ecosystem of tools. And it’s not just about any one particular vertical but how everything works together ultimately. We have over 30 products, including some vertical-specific software. And [there’s] a developer platform, which if our customers don’t find the tools they need in our platform, [they] can always build their own or hire [a] developer to do the same.”

How Amazon and Walmart Want to Shape the Future of Health and Wellness (pymnts.com)

[Sr K] Shares of Jack Dorsey’s Block Fall on Short-Seller Report Hindenburg Research r...

Sr K — 3/23/2023 12:32:43 PM

Shares of Jack Dorsey’s Block Fall on Short-Seller Report

Hindenburg Research released a report based on a two-year investigation, accusing Block of inflating user numbers

Hindenburg said Jack Dorsey, Block Inc.’s chief and co-founder, has amassed a $5 billion personal fortune by taking advantage of Cash App’s users. PHOTO: MARCO BELLO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

By Peter Rudegeair

Updated March 23, 2023 12:14 pm ET

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Shares of the payments company formerly known as Square fell 13% in early trading Thursday after a short seller questioned the company’s user numbers and accused it of predatory tactics.

Hindenburg Research said a two-year investigation into Block Inc.found the company “obfuscates” its Cash App service’s true user numbers by reporting misleading metrics “filled with fake and duplicate accounts.” It also accused the company of taking advantage of the demographics it claims to serve—lower-income people and minorities—with “predatory loans and fees.”

Exc.

[Glenn Petersen] Block misses on earnings but beats on revenue, gross profit PUBLISHED THU, FEB ...

Glenn Petersen — 2/24/2023 6:09:28 AM

Block misses on earnings but beats on revenue, gross profit

PUBLISHED THU, FEB 23 20234:34 PM EST
UPDATED THU, FEB 23 20238:14 PM EST
MacKenzie Sigalos @KENZIESIGALOS
CNBC.com

KEY POINTS

-- Block stock rose in extended trading after the payments company reported fourth-quarter revenue and gross profit that beat Wall Street’s expectations.

-- The company posted a (non-adjusted) net loss of $114 million, or 19 cents per share, for the quarter.

Block stock rose nearly 8% in extended trading after the payments company reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed Wall Street expectations but posted strong growth in gross profit.

Here’s how Block did versus Refinitiv consensus expectations:

EPS: 22 cents, adjusted, versus expectations of 30 cents

Revenue: $4.65 billion versus expectations of $4.61 billion

Block posted $1.66 billion in gross profit, up 40% from a year ago. That beat Wall Street expectations of $1.53 billion.

Analysts tend to focus on gross profit as a more accurate measurement of the company’s core transactional businesses.

The company posted a (non-adjusted) net loss of $114 million, or 19 cents per share, for the quarter

Block, formerly known as Square, told CNBC in a call that the company ended the year with 51 million monthly transacting actives for Cash App in December, with two out of three transacting each week on average.

Its Cash App business reported $848 million in gross profit, a 64% year-over-year rise, according to Block. During December 2022, Cash App had 51 million monthly transacting actives, an increase of 16% year over year.

The company, which is run by CEO Jack Dorsey, said its Cash App Card generated more than $750 million in gross profits in 2022, up 56% from the year-earlier period.

Its point-of-sale business, Square, saw gross profit grow 22% on an annual basis to $801 million.

Prior to Thursday’s after-hours moves, the stock was up more than 15% in 2023.

Executives will discuss the results on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

Block (SQ) earnings Q4 2022 (cnbc.com)

[Glenn Petersen] Shares of Block jump on earnings beat Published Thu, Nov 3 20224:37 PM EDT Upda...

Glenn Petersen — 11/4/2022 6:11:17 AM

Shares of Block jump on earnings beat

Published Thu, Nov 3 20224:37 PM EDT
Updated 5 Hours Ago
Kif Leswing @kifleswing

Key Points

Block stock rose in extended trading after the payments company reported third-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations for profit.

Block stock rose over 11% in extended trading after the payments company reported third-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street expectations for profit.

Here's how Block did versus Refinitiv consensus expectations:

EPS: $0.42, adjusted, versus expectations of $0.23
Revenue: $4.52 billion versus expectations of $4.49 billion

Block posted $1.57 billion in gross profit, up 38% from $1.13 billion a year ago. That beat Wall Street expectations of $1.53 billion.

Block, formerly known as Square, said in a letter to shareholders that its company showed strong growth, even as other payment companies have warned about upcoming slowdowns due to macroeconomic effects.

Its Cash App business reported $774 million in gross profit, a 51% year-over-year rise, according to Block. The company said that there were over 18 million people actively using its Cash debit card in September, up 40% year-over-year.

Its point-of-sale business, Square, saw gross profit grow 29% on an annual basis to $783 million.

Analysts tend to focus on Block's gross profit instead of its top-line results because it has bitcoin and buy-now-pay-later businesses that have small margins. Block said it made $37 million from Bitcoin sales during the quarter on $1.76 billion in gross sales.

Block said it registered a bitcoin impairment loss of $2 million during the quarter related to Bitcoin it bought in late 2020 and early 2021. Block still holds $156 million worth of bitcoin, based on its price at the end of September.

cnbc.com

[Glenn Petersen] Block Has Assembled the Right Pieces Shares of the firm behind Square and Cash ...

Glenn Petersen — 5/31/2022 8:20:16 AM

Block Has Assembled the Right Pieces

Shares of the firm behind Square and Cash App have been beaten up alongside other fintech companies, but it still has strong profit potential

By Telis Demos
Wall Street Journal
May 31, 2022

Potential investors in Square parent Block SQ 8.52% might stumble over its bitcoin bets. But they don’t have to.

With the market turning against money-losing companies, the onus is on once highflying growth stocks to show a clear path to big profits. Block, the operator of both Square and Cash App, has the pieces to make a compelling case. Even if user or e-commerce growth slows, Block’s consumer Cash App is rapidly adding ways to monetize its existing users via additional financial services, as well as to help boost its Square seller business. Rather than adding still more users, this kind of per-user revenue expansion is what investors are looking for now across many fintech companies, ranging from PayPal to Robinhood Markets.

With Cash App, the average monthly active user brought in just over $1,000 to their accounts in the first quarter of 2022. And Cash App monetized those inflows into gross profit—defined as revenue minus certain transaction processing, bitcoin and hardware costs—at a rate of just under 1.2%. For an active customer in March doing direct deposit with Cash App, that increased their inflows on average by 6½ times compared with someone just using Cash App’s peer-to-peer payments service. On top of that, an active account in March that was an active user of the company’s debit-card, stock-trading or borrowing services increased their monetization rate on average to 1.7 times that of a peer-to-peer-only use.

This growing monetization over time beyond the peer-to-peer payment business has been one factor helping bring up Cash App’s structural margin—or the profitability of each additional dollar of gross profit less variable costs—to 37 cents last year, from just 4 cents in 2018. On top of that, when Cash App customers end up shopping at a merchant using Square payment services, that can drive even more-profitable transactions: The structural margin on Square gross profit was nearly 70 cents a dollar in 2021.

Block’s recent acquisition of split-pay service Afterpay can accelerate things, too. Only about 6% of Cash App annual active accounts were active Afterpay users as of the end of the first quarter. But in the first quarter, Cash App generated more than 350,000 leads to Afterpay merchants. More of those merchants may end up using Square’s payment services, too. Some large merchants that use Afterpay have already signed up to add Cash App Pay as a checkout option.

This kind of profit potential should appeal to investors, even in this market. However, Block’s overall margins also are affected by fixed costs. That includes spending on longer-term growth projects. Cash App’s all-in, or “fully burdened,” gross profit margin was 12% last year. From 2015 to 2021, Block’s total fixed expenses went from about 60% of gross profit to about 30%, though the company said it doesn’t expect to have fixed-expense leverage in the near term.

Part of what Block is investing in includes a bigger future for bitcoin and its ecosystem. Given crypto’s recent market implosion, some investors won’t be in the mood to pay for any bets on blockchain’s long-term potential for financial, creative and security purposes, which are all part of Chief Executive Jack Dorsey’s ultimate, uniquely bitcoin-focused vision. So Block’s shares might not soon overcome the gravitational pull of a bearish market.

Still, companies shouldn’t be overly penalized for longer-term investment. In the rapidly evolving digital money business, it is easy to get bypassed. Bitcoin also drives inflows, with the typical Cash App active bitcoin customer in March putting in nearly four times as much as a peer-to-peer-only user. Block says it plans for under 3% of core operating expenses to go to “emerging initiatives,” and it is prepared to scale back on spending if needed. A lot of spend right now is also going toward integrating Afterpay—which does have a strong link to profitability, as well as to international expansion.

Investors sifting through the carnage in growth stocks shouldn’t dismiss Block as a key piece of a future fintech portfolio.

Write to Telis Demos at telis.demos@wsj.com

Block Has Assembled the Right Pieces - WSJ

[Glenn Petersen] Block Needs to Keep Stacking on Solid Foundation Shares of the fintech company ...

Glenn Petersen — 5/7/2022 8:21:20 AM

Block Needs to Keep Stacking on Solid Foundation

Shares of the fintech company aren’t quite as hard hit as many peers, but continuing expansion of Cash App will be critical

By Telis Demos
Wall Street Journal
May 6, 2022 11:37 am ET

With so many fintech stocks tumbling, Block SQ 0.67% may be among the sturdier ones.

Financial-technology and digital-commerce companies’ shares have been hit hard by the market’s turn against growth stocks. Among them is Block, formerly known as Square. Its shares are down more than 40% so far in 2022. But it isn’t quite as downtrodden as some others that play in those realms, with companies such as Affirm and Shopify both down more than 70%. Block is also trading around the same multiple of enterprise value to forward earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization it was at the end of 2019; multiples for stocks such as Adyen, PayPal and Shopify are all now lower than they were at that point in time.

One driver of this may be Block’s big exposure to in-person shopping, via its Square seller business, which has been rising sharply as pandemic restrictions recede and e-commerce growth slows. In the company’s first-quarter report on Thursday, it said Square card-present gross payment volume—a proxy for in-store payments—grew by 41% year-over-year in the first quarter. That was 20 points faster than card-not-present GPV, which are often e-commerce sales.

Another driver is resilience in growth for Cash App, Block’s consumer-finance and payments app. What distinguishes Cash App in many investors’ minds is that it isn’t just a play on e-commerce or shopping, but also on banking’s digital transformation. Excluding the new addition of recently acquired Afterpay’s results, Cash App’s gross profit grew 17% on-year in the first quarter, despite a tough comparison with the stimulus check surge last year. The company is still expecting that the second half of 2022 will generate faster year-over-year growth.

Cash App makes money in several ways, one of which is when people use debit cards linked to their accounts. Notably, Cash Card gross profit was up 50% in the first quarter over last year, with the company saying it saw many users making day-to-day purchases like groceries and fast food. That may be an indicator that people are using Cash App similar to how they might use a checking account.

Along those lines, Block said that recurring paycheck deposits into the app were up 2½ times in March from a year earlier. Monthly transacting active users made 21 transactions on average across Block’s ecosystem in March; that figure was 18-per-month during the first quarter last year. Quarterly total inflows into Cash App were the strongest ever.

Block has an investor day coming up later this month, and one thing investors might want is more perspective on how much growth can come from continuing user expansion versus further engagement and monetization of already-active users—much as attention has shifted to per-user revenue growth across fintech. Part of the story for Block is likely to be the role of recently acquired installment payments service Afterpay in Cash App.

Block may have a solid base, but investors will still want to know how much more can be built on top of it.

Write to Telis Demos at telis.demos@wsj.com

Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the May 7, 2022, print edition as 'Block Needs A Solid Foundation.'

Block Needs to Keep Stacking on Solid Foundation - WSJ

[inspbudget] SQ has lost more than 60% of its value from November last year. I was really pe...

inspbudget — 2/26/2022 1:31:08 AM

SQ has lost more than 60% of its value from November last year.

I was really perplexed at such a long, relentless slide in the stock price. There was no break at all - seemed like someone or some organization was deliberately forcing the price down and down.

Hope that today's modest but welcome recovery will signal the end of the ski slope pattern of the last 3 months.

[Glenn Petersen] Cash App Is King for Block Stock A reacceleration of growth in the payments and...

Glenn Petersen — 2/25/2022 8:08:31 PM

Cash App Is King for Block Stock

A reacceleration of growth in the payments and neobanking app is reigniting investors’ faith in the fintech darling

By Telis Demos
Wall Street Journal
Updated Feb. 25, 2022 11:49 am ET

Block’s SQ 26.14% Cash App is money again for investors in the fintech giant.

Markets appeared to have lost faith in the hypergrowth potential of financial technology, with stocks such as Affirm, AFRM 1.24% Block and PayPal PYPL 5.64% all trading down more than 40% so far in 2022 as of Thursday’s close. A major concern has been that the digital payments and banking boom of the pandemic was a stimulus-driven one-off, or a pull-forward of years of future growth—and that digital finance won’t fundamentally disrupt banks or develop products that encourage long-term loyalty.

Now investors may find reasons for a renewal of optimism in results for Block’s Cash App, the neobank-like service that enables payments, deposits and more. Cash App was a major beneficiary of the disbursement of government checks during the pandemic. That had investors dreaming of a more rapid-than-anticipated evolution of Block into a digital banking giant. Then, as stimulus faded, Cash App’s year-over-year gross profit growth became progressively slower in the second and third quarters of 2021, with a sequential gross-profit drop from the second to the third quarter.

In the fourth quarter, though, Cash App stabilized. Gross profit was up a bit from the third quarter and rising at a faster year-over-year pace. That annual growth rate could dip again in the first quarter, when Cash App faces a tough comparison to the period when stimulus checks were sent out in 2021. However, the business appears to be on pace to grow gross profit sequentially again, judging by accelerating two-year-compound growth in March versus January and February. Block further said that it anticipated year-over-year growth rate improvements in the second half of 2022 for Cash App.

Perhaps most enticingly, Block attributed some of that growth to expansion of what Cash App does: newer services such as tax preparation, merchant payments and accounts for teens, as well as pricing adjustments. This may reignite the belief that Cash App is much more than just another digital stimulus-check deposit service to its newer users. Block shares surged on Friday after its earnings report, gaining about 20% in midmorning trading.

Given the market’s general distrust of growth companies right now due to risk aversion and rising interest rates, Block might struggle to make up for all of its recent valuation compression. It began 2021 trading at an enterprise value around 150 times next-twelve-months earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Now it fetches about 65 times—still above where it began at around 50 times.

There might be catalysts, though, for some additional gains. Block still is telling investors more about what it anticipates for revenue synergy with Afterpay, the buy-now, pay-later specialist it acquired recently—something especially needed as that sector is facing its own concerns about growth deceleration. The company is holding an investor day in May. Meanwhile, Block’s original Square business for sellers is picking up momentum, driven in part by further normalization of in-person shopping.

What all of this does is provide a stronger foundation for Block. But questions remain about how effectively it can fit its pieces together.

Write to Telis Demos at telis.demos@wsj.com

Cash App Is King for Block Stock - WSJ

[Sr K] Square Changes Name to Block, Days After CEO Jack Dorsey Leaves Twitter New nam...

Sr K — 12/2/2021 1:33:45 AM

Square Changes Name to Block, Days After CEO Jack Dorsey Leaves Twitter

New name for financial-services company aligns with its chief’s interest in bitcoin and blockchain

Jack Dorsey has emerged as one of the highest-profile backers of bitcoin.PHOTO: MARCO BELLO/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

By
Paul Vigna

Dec. 1, 2021 4:30 pm ET

Square Inc., the financial-services company co-founded and led by former Twitter Inc. chief Jack Dorsey, is changing its corporate name to Block Inc.

The change will be effective later this month, the company said Wednesday. Its ticker symbol will remain SQ.

The move comes just days after Mr. Dorsey resigned as Twitter’s chief executive. He was serving as CEO of both companies.

What’s Next for New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal as Jack Dorsey Exits

0:00 / 1:49

What’s Next for New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal as Jack Dorsey Exits

Twitter’s new CEO Parag Agrawal is stepping in as the company has struggled with growth while increasingly experimenting with new products. WSJ’s Laura Forman unpacks what direction the incoming leader could take the social-media platform next. Photo: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

Square said the new name encompasses its various businesses better than the current name, which is mostly associated with its merchant-payment services. However, the new name also happens to align with Mr. Dorsey’s interest in cryptocurrencies and the technology behind them, called blockchain.

Mr. Dorsey has emerged as one of the highest-profile backers of bitcoin, and to an extent has used Square as a vehicle for that. “I don’t think there’s anything more important in my lifetime to work on,” Mr. Dorsey said at a bitcoin conference earlier this year.

The company holds about $220 million of bitcoin in its corporate treasury. Its CashApp business allows users to buy and sell bitcoin. In August, the company started a new unit aimed at building a blockchain-based exchange for trading crypto assets.

Mr. Dorsey was one of Twitter’s four founders. In 2009, he co-founded Square. Its first product was a mobile credit-card reader for merchants. While Twitter may have a higher profile, Square has become the more valuable company, with a market capitalization of about $92 billion compared with Twitter’s $35 billion.

Square’s earnings for the 12 months through September were $537 million on sales of $16.7 billion, according to FactSet. Twitter lost $181 million on sales of $5 billion in the same period.

Square is the second high-profile Silicon Valley company to change its name. In late October, Facebook changed its name to Meta PlatformsInc., saying the new name reflected its focus on virtual-reality products and platforms dubbed the “metaverse.”

Write to Paul Vigna at paul.vigna@wsj.com

[Glenn Petersen] Jack Dorsey’s Square changes corporate name to Block PUBLISHED WED, DEC 1 2021...

Glenn Petersen — 12/1/2021 6:35:23 PM

Jack Dorsey’s Square changes corporate name to Block

PUBLISHED WED, DEC 1 20214:30 PM EST
UPDATED MOMENTS AGO
Kate Rooney @KR00NEY
CNBC.com

KEY POINTS

-- Payments giant Square will change its corporate name to Block, effective Dec. 10.

-- The move comes as Square expands beyond its original credit card reader business, with a focus on new technologies like blockchain.

-- Square CEO Jack Dorsey stepped down from his role as Twitter CEO on Monday.

Square is renaming itself Block as it focuses on technologies like blockchain and expands beyond its original credit card reader business.

Jack Dorsey’s payments giant said in an announcement the new name, effective Dec. 10, “acknowledges the company’s growth” and “creates room for further growth.” Block will still trade under the ticker SQ on the New York Stock Exchange.

“We built the Square brand for our Seller business, which is where it belongs,” Jack Dorsey, cofounder and CEO of Block, said in a statement. “Block is a new name, but our purpose of economic empowerment remains the same. No matter how we grow or change, we will continue to build tools to help increase access to the economy.”

Dorsey co-founded Square in 2009 with a focus on in-person payments and its namesake card reader, which let people accept credit card payments on a smartphone. San Francisco-based Square has since added a peer-to-peer digital banking app, small business lending, received a bank charter and offers crypto and stock trading. The company has acquired buy-now-pay-later provider Afterpay and Jay-Z’s music streaming service Tidal. It’s also doubling down on bitcoin with a crypto-focused business called TBD.

As part of the Square rebrand, a separate part of the company “dedicated to advancing Bitcoin,” known as Square Crypto, will change its name to Spiral.

“The name has many associated meanings for the company — building blocks, neighborhood blocks and their local businesses, communities coming together at block parties full of music, a blockchain, a section of code, and obstacles to overcome,” Block said in a statement.

Dorsey stepped down from his other job as Twitter CEO on Monday after running both Twitter and Square since 2015. Dorsey cited a belief Twitter was “ready to move on from its founders,” and will now have more time to dedicate to Square’s growing portfolio. But Dorsey is also expected to focus on his fascination with cryptocurrency.

The news comes roughly a month after Facebook changed its name to Meta to reflect on CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s plan to build a virtual world called the metaverse. Google famously renamed itself Alphabet six years ago in a similar move to reflect other lines of business.

Square was one of the biggest winners of 2020 as consumers shifted to digital payments. Shares are down roughly 2% so far this year, as investors rotate away from higher-growth tech names.
Square changes corporate name to Block (cnbc.com)

[Glenn Petersen] Square Releases White Paper for Decentralized Bitcoin Exchange Sure, you can bu...

Glenn Petersen — 11/21/2021 6:24:27 AM

Square Releases White Paper for Decentralized Bitcoin Exchange

Sure, you can buy Bitcoin on the Cash App run by Square. But what if you could swap it via a decentralized exchange built by Square?

By Jeff Benson
Decrpt
3 min read
Nov 19, 2021

In brief

-- Square is a financial payments company led by Jack Dorsey.

-- It has been working on a decentralized asset exchange since the summer.

Square, the financial services company helmed by Twitter's Jack Dorsey, wants to do more with Bitcoin than just allow people to buy it on its Cash App. It's working on a way to let people trade BTC and fiat on the type of decentralized exchange (DEX) that's common to Ethereum.

Square's TBD division, first announced in July, today released a white paper presenting tbDEX.

The white paper claims tbDEX is a "protocol for discovering liquidity and exchanging assets (such as bitcoin, fiat money, or real world goods)" safely without knowing the identity of other parties. Moreover, it says the protocol goes around financial intermediaries and other gatekeepers (such as centralized exchanges) that guard the borders between fiat and digital currencies.

While tbDEX is built around the concept of Bitcoin, it isn't necessarily built atop the Bitcoin blockchain. It's just a series of on- and off-ramps to BTC and other cryptocurrency networks. Where exactly the protocol lives isn't clearly stated in the highly-technical yet high-level white paper.

One big question is: Why not just use the infrastructure being built on Ethereum? The network, which utilizes smart contracts to allow for transactions beyond just currency, has decentralized exchanges and identity solutions ready to be built upon. And bridges exist between Ethereum and other networks. Yet it received zero mentions in the white paper.

The quick answer is that Dorsey is a big fan of Bitcoin, the original cryptocurrency. He has repeatedly shown no interest in Ethereum and other currencies while professing love for BTC. “Whatever my companies can do to make it accessible to everyone is how I’m going to spend the rest of my life,” Dorsey said of Bitcoin this June. “If I were not at Square or Twitter, I would be working on Bitcoin. If it needed more help than Square or Twitter, I would leave them for Bitcoin."

Square has been part of the peer-to-peer payment revolution, making it easier for friends to send cash from their bank accounts or small vendors to take credit card payments. tbDEX would extend this mission into the crypto space—suddenly people wouldn't be sending cash held in bank accounts but from crypto wallets they themselves own.

But new entrants to the cryptocurrency space must first jump from the fiat to the digital world. That usually starts by buying crypto with a bank card on a centralized exchange such as Coinbase or Binance. Good luck, however, explaining to newbies how to manage the transfers and transaction fees necessary to get it into non-custodial wallets and then onto truly decentralized financial services where banks are out of the picture.

"It is still prohibitively difficult for the average person, starting with traditional fiat-based payment instruments, to directly access on-ramps and off-ramps into and out of the decentralized financial system," notes the white paper. "We need a better bridge into this future. The tbDEX protocol is directed at this problem."

You might say, then, that Square is working on DeFi for...squares.

Square Releases White Paper for Decentralized Bitcoin Exchange - Decrypt

[Sr K] Amazon Is Doing It. So Is Walmart. Why Retail Loves ‘Buy Now, Pay Later.’ Retai...

Sr K — 9/16/2021 2:22:10 PM

Amazon Is Doing It. So Is Walmart. Why Retail Loves ‘Buy Now, Pay Later.’

Retailers big and small are using installment plans to wring more sales out of shoppers who can’t get credit cards

Shoppers spend more at Macy’s when they use installment plans offered through Klarna Bank, Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said on a recent earnings call.PHOTO: GABRIELA BHASKAR/BLOOMBERG NEWS

By
AnnaMaria Andriotis

Sept. 16, 2021 5:30 am ET

Alexis Luedtke got her first “buy now, pay later” plan in 2019 after she was rejected for a credit card. She has used at least five more since to buy face cream, T-shirts and birthday gifts.

Installment plans are back in style. PayPal Holdings Inc. PYPL +0.10%last week said it was buying Japanese installment payment startupPaidy Inc., following Square Inc.’s $29 billion deal for Afterpay Ltd. APT -0.06% Macy’s Inc. M +4.22% and Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. BBBY +0.71% have added the option at checkout over the past year. Even Amazon.com Inc. AMZN +0.23% is doing it.

One reason: shoppers like Ms. Luedtke who don’t qualify for credit cards. Buy-now-pay-later companies say they rely less on—and in some cases bypass altogether—traditional credit scores and reports. Doing so allows them to approve more consumers. Shoppers gain the ability to buy things even without cash on hand—translating to higher sales for retailers.

Afterpay said it expects the company’s U.S. merchants will see an $8.2 billion increase in sales this year because of payment plans. Affirm Holdings Inc. AFRM +7.13% last year said purchases made with its payment plans were 85% larger, on average.

Shoppers spend more at Macy’s when they use installment plans offered through Klarna Bank AB, Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said on a recent earnings call. Klarna also is helping the retailer attract younger customers, he said.

“The value that most retailers see in buy now, pay later is customer acquisition,” said David Sykes, Klarna’s North America head.

Ms. Luedtke, 26, has credit cards now but still prefers installment plans. Just last month, she used them to buy about $40 of Peter Thomas Roth skin-care products and $65 in clothing from Shein.

“It definitely influences how much more I buy or would spend,” she said. “It’s easier to pay $200 over so many weeks compared to $200 right now.”

Buy now, pay later is a new twist on an old idea. Big retailers have for decades offered installment plans for big-ticket items like washing machines. Today, these plans come in a variety of flavors. Afterpay offers payment plans that shoppers usually attach to their debit cards. Others, like Affirm, also facilitate new loans.

Interest rates and other terms vary by payment-plan provider. Affirm interest rates range from 0% to 30%, with some 43% of its transactions during its last fiscal year not charging interest at all. The company doesn’t charge late fees. Afterpay doesn’t charge interest but does collect late fees.

Merchants take no credit risk with these plans, but the fees they incur can be higher than on credit-card purchases—often between 3% and 5% of the purchase price, according to people familiar with the matter.

Buy-now-pay-later companies say they can approve more customers than banks, including people who have thin or no borrowing history. Some 53 million adults in the U.S. lack traditional credit scores, according to FICO score creator Fair Isaac Corp. Installment plans are safer, they say, because they are often smaller than credit-card spending limits and approved on a per-transaction basis.

Affirm said that it had a net charge-off rate of 1% in the quarter ended June 30, down from 2% a year earlier. Afterpay said it wrote off 0.6% of the total dollars it processed in payments during the company’s fiscal year ended June 30, up from 0.4% the year prior.

Working with a web of retailers, buy-now-pay-later companies can create self-contained payment ecosystems. They factor payment behavior into future underwriting decisions. Customers who pay late or not at all risk losing the installment option at other participating retailers.

“Most merchants want a partner who has real advantage and real ability to underwrite,” said Affirm CEO Max Levchin. “These are not deeper approvals, but they are different approvals.”

Affirm facilitates new loans among other payment plans.ILLUSTRATION: AFFIRM
Amazon AMZN 0.28% and Walmart Inc. are both working with Affirm. Both have said they want their financial partners to extend credit to more of their customers.

Amazon is reviewing proposals, as it weighs whether to replace its longtime card issuer, JPMorgan Chase & Co. Amazon is looking for “commitments to underwrite competitively to widen the acquisition funnel,” the retailer said in a request for proposals reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

A desire to boost loan approvals was among the reasons Walmart in 2018 decided to end its decadeslong credit-card partnership with Synchrony Financial. (Capital One Financial Corp. now issues Walmart-branded credit cards.) The retailer made Affirm loans available to most of its customers the following year.

“Our goal is financial inclusion for all,” said Julia Unger, Walmart’s vice president of financial services.

Some banks now offer installment options on their credit cards. Citigroup Inc. saw a sevenfold increase in the dollar amount of credit-card purchases converted to installment loans in July, compared with the same month a year prior, said Gonzalo Luchetti, head of Citigroup’s U.S. consumer bank.

Synchrony, the largest U.S. store-credit-card issuer, will launch a buy-now, pay-later plan in October. Capital One will test out its own offering later this year, CEO Richard Fairbank said at a conference Monday.

Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. are exploring adding installment plans on their credit cards, according to people familiar with the matter. Visa Inc. said it has been testing out ways for shoppers to check if they qualify for installment plans when they enter their card numbers at checkout.

Exc,

[Zen Dollar Round] I'm not a fan of Jack Dorsey, but I am bullish on both SQ and TWTR. More so on ...

Zen Dollar Round — 8/9/2021 1:58:27 PM

I'm not a fan of Jack Dorsey, but I am bullish on both SQ and TWTR.

More so on SQ.

[quantinvestor] Incredibly bullish on SQ as they start to embrace crypto currencies and build th...

quantinvestor — 8/9/2021 12:58:22 PM

Incredibly bullish on SQ as they start to embrace crypto currencies and build their new bitcoin wallet. Huge fan of Jack Dorsey and the stock. Bullish!

[Sr K] SQ acquiring Afterpay, for $29B wsj.com Article not out yet More later Squar...

Sr K — 8/1/2021 6:10:39 PM

SQ acquiring Afterpay, for $29B

wsj.com

Article not out yet

More later

Square Agrees to Acquire Afterpay for $29 Billion in All-Stock Deal

Australian installment-payment company positions its service as a cheaper, more responsible alternative to a credit card

Square said it expects its acquisition of Afterpay to close in the first quarter of 2022.PHOTO: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

By
David Winning

Aug. 1, 2021 6:03 pm ET

Square Inc. SQ -3.14% has agreed to an all-stock deal worth around $29 billion to acquire Australia’s Afterpay Ltd. APT -5.28% , an installment-payment company that positions its service as a cheaper and more responsible alternative to a credit card.

Write to David Winning at david.winning@wsj.com

[Sr K] Meet the Inner Circle of Square CFO Amrita Ahuja An all-star panel of advisers ...

Sr K — 7/24/2021 9:58:21 PM

Meet the Inner Circle of Square CFO Amrita Ahuja

An all-star panel of advisers have helped the fintech executive climb the corporate, um, lattice

wsj.com

PRESTON GANNAWAY FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By
Peter Rudegeair

July 24, 2021 12:00 am ET

In Personal Board of Directors, top business leaders talk about the people they turn to for advice, and how those people have shaped their perspective and helped them succeed. Previous installments from the series are here.

When Amrita Ahuja accepted a job offer in 2018 to become the chief financial officer of payments company Square Inc., she was making a pair of professional leaps.

Ms. Ahuja, 39 years old at the time, had never been part of the C-suite of a publicly traded company. And, up until then, her career path wound through the worlds of digital media and videogame publishing—not the most obvious background for a top executive at a financial-tech company.

The daughter of Indian immigrants who owned a day-care center in a suburb of Cleveland, Ms. Ahuja said she was drawn to Square because of its focus on empowering small-business owners like her parents. Best known for its white tablets and card readers that adorn coffee shops and hair salons, Square makes tools that help small businesses accept payments, manage payroll and borrow money.

BIO BOX

Age: 41 Education: A.B. in economics, Duke University; M.B.A., Harvard Business School

Family: Husband Harpreet Marwaha. Two sons, ages 7 and 4. First job: Summer camp counselor at her parents’ daycare in Cleveland Heights, Ohio

Favorite videogames: “Guitar Hero” and “Candy Crush”

Favorite pandemic binge watch: “The Great British Baking Show.” “Because of that show I now have pavlova in my repertoire.” Fun fact: Her older brother, Ravi Ahuja, is currently chairman of Global TV Studios for Sony Pictures Entertainment and was once her boss at Fox. Worst career advice: Pick a job title you want in 15 years, then write the plan for how to get there.

“I felt the strongest purpose and calling in Square in helping that entrepreneur,” Ms. Ahuja said, “because of where I grew up.”

Navigating digital transformation has been a theme of Ms. Ahuja’s career, both at Square and in prior strategy and finance roles at Walt Disney Co. , News Corp’s former Fox division, and Activision Blizzard Inc. (News Corp owns The Wall Street Journal.)

At Fox, she played a role in launching the streaming service Hulu. At Activision Blizzard, maker of “Call of Duty,” “Candy Crush” and “World of Warcraft,” she helped the videogame company transition its business model from one dominated by in-store sales around the holidays to one defined by an online, always-on, multiplayer experience.

During Ms. Ahuja’s time at Square, the company has helped small-business customers build online storefronts to make up for the shortfall in foot traffic caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Square’s digital consumer banking service, Cash App, thrived as millions of Americans used it to accept their stimulus and unemployment benefits and trade slices of individual stocks and bitcoin.

“Being able to adapt and pivot quickly, being consumer-led, being iterative, learning from your customer base—those are all things that we have to do at Square and game developers have to do continually,” Ms. Ahuja said.

Here are four of her most trusted advisers:

Jack DorseyChief executive officer of both Square Inc. and Twitter Inc.

Even though Mr. Dorsey splits his time running two big publicly traded companies, Ms. Ahuja said he’s readily available to give her advice about topics internal and external to Square.

She prizes his skills as a “future see-er” who is able to spot trends before they go mainstream, whether it was being an early evangelist for bitcoin or championing a geographically distributed workforce before the pandemic made that a reality for most companies. (Mr. Dorsey had planned to spend part of 2020 working remotely from Africa. In March 2020, the onset of the pandemic and Twitter’s battle with activist investor Elliott Management Corp. prompted him to rethink those plans.)

Ms. Ahuja said she personally benefited from Mr. Dorsey’s clarity of vision and willingness to break inertia. When he was recruiting her to join Square, Mr. Dorsey viewed her lack of a track record in financial-tech as an asset since it would push his executive team to think differently.

“Jack, when he hired me, saw something in me before others did,” Ms. Ahuja said.

Mary MeekerGeneral partner at Bond Capital

Both Ms. Ahuja and Ms. Meeker, a member of Square’s board of directors, are alumnae of Morgan Stanley. Ms. Ahuja joined the investment bank as a junior tech banker after graduating from college in 2001. By then, Ms. Meeker was a celebrity stock analyst at Morgan Stanley’s research division, earning the nickname “Queen of the Net” for her early buy ratings on dot-com stocks including AOL and Dell Computer. “I remember absolutely people hanging on Mary’s words,” Ms. Ahuja said.

Now, Ms. Ahuja can tap Ms. Meeker’s wisdom in the boardroom and her ability to map out industry landscapes and quantify risks. These days, Ms. Meeker is known for her influential “Internet Trends” report, each edition of which is densely packed with hundreds of pages of charts and data on the future of technology.

“She has an uncanny ability to identify thematic trends in a data-driven way,” Ms. Ahuja said.

Humam Sakhnini President of King, a unit of Activision Blizzard Inc.

In 2010, Ms. Ahuja took a job in the strategy department of Activision Blizzard, a department then run by Mr. Sakhnini. After about two years in that role, Ms. Ahuja felt like she was settling into a groove. So she was taken aback when Mr. Sakhnini recommended that she switch over into a job in the finance and operations team.

“Coming from traditional media where you were viewed to be disloyal if you wanted to try something different, it was new to hear someone who was a supporter of mine asking me to leave the team and try something else,” Ms. Ahuja said.

She ended up following his counsel, embracing the discomforts of a job she had never considered in hopes of finding personal and professional growth. Ms. Ahuja eventually was promoted to lead Activision Blizzard’s investor relations department before becoming the finance chief of its Blizzard Entertainment unit, which set her up to become Square’s chief financial officer.

Mr. Sakhnini “helped me learn some of the best career advice: It’s not a career ladder, it’s a career lattice,” Ms Ahuja said.

Sarah Harden Chief executive officer, Hello Sunshine

During her three years at News Corp, one of Ms. Ahuja’s mentors was Ms. Harden, a senior vice president overseeing strategy and business development for Fox’s entertainment and sports networks and digital properties. Nowadays, Ms. Harden is the CEO of Hello Sunshine, a media production company founded by actress Reese Witherspoon whose titles include the hit HBO drama “Big Little Lies.”

One of the most senior female executives at Fox Networks Group when Ms. Ahuja worked with her there, Ms. Harden modeled the importance of being vocal in sharing her points of view with other executives while also balancing family duties. Ms. Ahuja remembers negotiating a deal alongside Ms. Harden late one Friday night when Ms. Harden left to go home and bake a cake for her daughter’s birthday the following day.

“She just demonstrated to me that perfect combination of badass businesswoman and mother,” Ms. Ahuja said. “She rarely thinks about boundaries or limits and brings that to the world of storytelling now in the work that she’s currently doing.”

Write to Peter Rudegeair at Peter.Rudegeair@wsj.com

Copyright ©2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the July 24, 2021, print edition as 'Amrita Ahuja.'

Dimons Aren’t Forever, but Boards Act That Way

[Da Rookie] look out below !

Da Rookie — 3/21/2021 12:26:49 AM

[2hugo] is uptrend intact or at resistance $235 [graphic]

2hugo — 3/10/2021 6:41:21 PM

is uptrend intact or at resistance $235

[Sr K] I knew her from Square, but not that about her prior steps. Where Nextdoor’s CE...

Sr K — 2/27/2021 1:46:53 AM

I knew her from Square, but not that about her prior steps.

Where Nextdoor’s CEO Looks for Neighborly Advice

Sarah Friar relies on family and friends as the foundation for her own social network

By
Feb. 27, 2021 12:00 am ET

In Personal Board of Directors, top business leaders talk about the people they turn to for advice, and how those people have shaped their perspective and helped them succeed. Previous installments from the series are here.

When Sarah Friar landed in Silicon Valley, she thought it would be a temporary stay. Two decades later she runs a San Francisco social media network used by one in four U.S. households.

It started in the late 1990s when Ms. Friar was a young consultant with McKinsey & Co. in London, and many of her colleagues wanted to attend Stanford University’s business school in California. She followed suit, thinking she would return home to the U.K. in two years. But dot-com mania struck, and after getting her M.B.A. she took a job analyzing technology stocks for Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

“I am probably, frankly, better lucky than good,” said Ms. Friar.

After more than a decade at Goldman and stints as a finance executive at Salesforce.com Inc. and Square Inc., Ms. Friar in 2018 became boss of Nextdoor Inc.—a neighborhood-focused social network where locals come to swap recommendations for babysitters and handymen and post rooms for rent and items for sale.

Skip

[Da Rookie] Doh ! Not Dough ! Square also announced today that it has purchased approximate...

Da Rookie — 2/23/2021 4:41:11 PM

Doh ! Not Dough !

Square also announced today that it has purchased approximately 3,318 bitcoins at an aggregate purchase price of $170 million. Combined with Square’s previous purchase of $50 million in bitcoin, this represents approximately five percent of Square’s total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities as of December 31, 2020.

[Da Rookie] And what will one year on bring us ?

Da Rookie — 2/20/2021 6:37:30 PM

[Da Rookie] Double in 6 mo :)

Da Rookie — 1/14/2021 1:16:55 AM

[Da Rookie] Thinking share price being tied to closely to bitcoin, though its made great mon...

Da Rookie — 1/11/2021 11:21:25 AM

Thinking share price being tied to closely to bitcoin, though its made great money recently, wish price wasnt tied so close

[Da Rookie] Square Capital Chief Resigning

Da Rookie — 10/5/2020 1:56:46 AM

[Zen Dollar Round] Smart move. I think you'll get your wish in the next couple of months. Can't se...

Zen Dollar Round — 9/28/2020 11:38:48 AM

Smart move. I think you'll get your wish in the next couple of months.

Can't see making it through November without a major pullback in the markets.

[inspbudget] Yes, I regret I sold it around $90 ages ago. Right now, I'm selling cash secur...

inspbudget — 9/28/2020 11:05:28 AM

Yes, I regret I sold it around $90 ages ago.

Right now, I'm selling cash secured Puts at around $135, hoping for a pullback so I can own it again.

[Zen Dollar Round] I think it's more like not too many interested in Silicon Investor these days. ...

Zen Dollar Round — 9/28/2020 9:35:33 AM

I think it's more like not too many interested in Silicon Investor these days.

I know I spend a lot less time here lately, mostly due to life circumstances.

SQ has definitely been a monster stock since the March lows in the low 30's!

[inspbudget] Quiet board. Guess not too many interested in SQ, even at close to ATH of $154...

inspbudget — 9/28/2020 12:51:28 AM

Quiet board. Guess not too many interested in SQ, even at close to ATH of $154.

[Sr K] ATH, high of $105.46.

Sr K — 6/22/2020 11:13:08 PM

[SI Ron (Crazy Music Man)] [X] #Square$SQ 82.01 +7.1% Square, Inc. Q4 Profit Tops Estimates; Net Revenu...

SI Ron (Crazy Music Man) — 2/27/2020 12:07:01 PM

[X]

#Square $SQ 82.01 +7.1% Square, Inc. Q4 Profit Tops Estimates; Net Revenue Up 41% https://t.co/Lwu4LLcq6D
Message Board: https://t.co/fMlge61OUE pic.twitter.com/MTFYwxXv2u
— Silicon Investor (@Si_Investor) February 27, 2020

[/X]

[SI Ron (Crazy Music Man)] [X] #Square$SQ 85.84 +4.1% KeyBanc boosts Square price target on Cash App 'mai...

SI Ron (Crazy Music Man) — 2/19/2020 1:04:05 PM

[X]

#Square $SQ 85.84 +4.1% KeyBanc boosts Square price target on Cash App 'mainstream potential' https://t.co/IU2aEtuD9G
Message board: https://t.co/wggNN0LFp6 pic.twitter.com/xycRRfl4DI
— Silicon Investor (@Si_Investor) February 19, 2020

[/X]

[SI Ron (Crazy Music Man)] [X] #Square$SQ 69.65 +0.2% Square, Inc. (SQ) Profit Margins posted -1.00% in t...

SI Ron (Crazy Music Man) — 1/20/2020 10:53:19 AM

[X]

#Square $SQ 69.65 +0.2% Square, Inc. (SQ) Profit Margins posted -1.00% in the last twelve months: The key fundamentals to watch https://t.co/U3keB7dLTh
Message Board: https://t.co/YacaBEUx8W pic.twitter.com/ZYChK7p7zL
— Silicon Investor (@Si_Investor) January 17, 2020

[/X]

[AmigaComputer] Jack Dorsey: The next decade belongs to Africa as technology ripples through the...

AmigaComputer — 12/18/2019 5:05:14 PM

Jack Dorsey: The next decade belongs to Africa as technology ripples through the continent. I agree with him. I was visiting Nigeria and you could see the overwhelming popularity of mobile devices, data plans, AND the growing desire for mobile payments.

Although it was there, you could feel, at least in Nigeria, that there is a controlled effort by the telecoms(?) to resist the push by 3rd party mobile payment operators, instead preferring people to use cash via their telecom branded ATMs. It was very strange. People had to carry suitcases full of nairah (their local currency). But inevitably, apps like Square seem very well positioned to make huge waves in countries like Nigeria because their is a huge yearning for mobile payment methods there.

WorldRemit, a very popular mobile payment app, ironically built by a Nigerian, is used extensively in east African countries like Kenya, but it seems their west countries are still using cash despite a 95% mobile-use penetration rate. Everyone i saw had an iPhone, or some android device. So the consumers are ready, the infrastructure is mature. It just takes the will of a company like Square to cease it because the potential in this market, for this continent, is worth hundreds of $billions.

[AmigaComputer] Facebook just rolled out Facebook Pay. This makes them a yet-another competitor...

AmigaComputer — 11/15/2019 8:59:50 PM

Facebook just rolled out Facebook Pay. This makes them a yet-another competitor in the very crowded payment system market. This new service bridges Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. And is now considered a competitor to Apple Pay and Square. It begins rolling out this week (Nov 15) on Facebook and Messenger.

[Glenn Petersen] Square profit tops estimates on growth in subscription and services business re...

Glenn Petersen — 11/6/2019 9:38:28 PM

Square profit tops estimates on growth in subscription and services business

reuters.com

[AmigaComputer] Square will be releasing financial results for the third quarter on November 6. ...

AmigaComputer — 10/10/2019 9:17:01 PM

Square will be releasing financial results for the third quarter on November 6. I am looking very forward to the results. Although they have been down a bit, it seems past investments could be bearing fruit in this upcoming report. Btw, the Zacks Rank system has SQ currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

[inspbudget] Thanks, Ron. yes, I do have this board marked, and follow it. Not a lot of...

inspbudget — 9/16/2019 2:04:22 PM

Thanks, Ron. yes, I do have this board marked, and follow it.

Not a lot of activity on it lately, for sure.

The results from Visa recently did not inspire a lot of excitement in this sector, unfortunately.

Maybe interest in FinTech sector will recover again one day.

[SI Ron (Crazy Music Man)] I don't invest in the market, but I posted the Tweet to keep the board on the ra...

SI Ron (Crazy Music Man) — 9/16/2019 1:38:10 PM

I don't invest in the market, but I posted the Tweet to keep the board on the radar screen. After 30 days with no messages its does not show up in on current stocks, you have to search for it, thats if you don't have it subjectmarked.

[inspbudget] Must admit that SQ has not performed well lately; presently sitting on fairly l...

inspbudget — 9/16/2019 1:12:58 PM

Must admit that SQ has not performed well lately; presently sitting on fairly large losses, having bought a few hundred at $78.

There have been more hit pieces appearing on SA lately, a sign that shorts are feasting happily on the decline.

But from what I have heard, the company appears to be doing its usual thing, with nothing really bad happening other than general poor sentiment in the sector.

Hoping for improvement but resigned to possibly having to wait a long time.

[SI Ron (Crazy Music Man)] [X] #Square$SQ 58.07 -0.4% Has Square Stock Bottomed or Is It Going to $50? htt...

SI Ron (Crazy Music Man) — 9/16/2019 12:21:16 PM

[X]

#Square $SQ 58.07 -0.4% Has Square Stock Bottomed or Is It Going to $50? https://t.co/AT02QERjcE
Message Board: https://t.co/8UglrIPSSQ pic.twitter.com/l1ezz6SgsU
— Silicon Investor (@Si_Investor) September 16, 2019

[/X]

[inspbudget] I hope the stock price will recover. The selling of the past few days has been ...

inspbudget — 8/11/2019 12:47:58 PM

I hope the stock price will recover. The selling of the past few days has been extreme and illogical, IMO.

The company is still doing well and beat expectations - but a 25% drop in value because of a lower guidance? Its only a foretasted number, not an actual performance.

[Zen Dollar Round] I didn't understand the negative reaction to the Caviar sale either. I had never...

Zen Dollar Round — 8/11/2019 2:53:23 AM

I didn't understand the negative reaction to the Caviar sale either. I had never even heard of Caviar nor did I know Square owned them. You're right, they don't need to be in that market given the number of players already there.

[AmigaComputer] To me, the sizeable selling off, the day after the disappointing Q2 announcement...

AmigaComputer — 8/10/2019 8:16:54 PM

To me, the sizeable selling off, the day after the disappointing Q2 announcement, tumbling the stock by 30% from its 52 week high, i feel could be in part due to Square selling Caviar for $410m to DoorDash. For those unfamiliar, Caviar is yet-another food delivery business. To me, the sale makes sense. Square should stick to its payment business model and not be trying to follow whats hot right now, entering markets that don't fit. On the bright side to the stock bad news, because Square bought Caviar for $44m they ended up making over $360m profit :)

[Zen Dollar Round] Yep, not a good time to release a disappointing earnings report or lowered guida...

Zen Dollar Round — 8/2/2019 2:23:05 PM

Yep, not a good time to release a disappointing earnings report or lowered guidance for any company.

Apple has had the same reaction to its stock and it surprised many analysts with its earning and guidance. It's now trading below its pre-earnings price.

[Glenn Petersen] Seems like a really extreme reaction to lowered guidance. I concur. In a nervou...

Glenn Petersen — 8/2/2019 10:33:07 AM

Seems like a really extreme reaction to lowered guidance.

I concur. In a nervous market investors are always looking for an excuse to sell. SQ gave them an excuse. I am still bullish long-term.

[inspbudget] Seems like a really extreme reaction to lowered guidance. Down 16% even when th...

inspbudget — 8/2/2019 10:19:31 AM

Seems like a really extreme reaction to lowered guidance.

Down 16% even when they hit their earnings target, and with good yoy figures?

I suppose folks just wanting an excuse to take profits and run.

Was sitting pretty yesterday, today I'm solidly underwater by about $10 - ugh.

SQ should recover to the mid 70's as cooler heads prevail in a few weeks time - I hope.

[Glenn Petersen] SQ is down 16% this morning. Square falls 7% after forecasting lower-than-expec...

Glenn Petersen — 8/2/2019 9:57:38 AM

SQ is down 16% this morning.

Square falls 7% after forecasting lower-than-expected guidance

Published Thu, Aug 1 2019 3:59 PM EDT
Updated Thu, Aug 1 2019 6:15 PM EDT
Kate Rooney @Kr00ney

Key Points

Adjusted third-quarter earnings per share guidance came in below Wall Street estimates. The company issued a range of between 18 cents and 20 cents per share, compared to 22 cents analysts had expected.
Square announced a deal to sell its food delivery company Caviar to DoorDash for $410 million.
Square’s gross payment volume came in at $26.8 billion vs. $26.9 billion Wall Street had expected.

Shares of Square dropped as much as 8% in after-hours trading Thursday after the payments company issued weaker-than-expected guidance. The company still beat analysts’ earnings and revenue expectations for the second quarter.

Here’s how Square did compared with what Wall Street was looking for:

Earnings: 21 cents per share, vs. 17 cents forecast by Refinitiv.
Adjusted revenue: $563 million vs. $557.1 million, forecast by Refinitiv.

Adjusted third-quarter earnings per share guidance came in below expectations. The company forecasted a range of between 18 cents and 20 cents per share, compared to 22 cents analysts had expected. Square did not update its full-year guidance.

“The third quarter is an important time for us to invest,” Square CFO Amrita Ahuja said on a call with reporters. “We expect these investments to benefit us and to drive growth in the future.”

Adjusted revenue rose to $563 million in the second quarter, a 46% jump year over year. Gross payment volume came in at $26.8 billion vs. the $26.9 billion Wall Street had expected. More than half of Square’s payment volume came from larger sellers.

The company updated investors on its popular peer-to-peer Cash App — largely seen as a competitor to PayPal’s Venmo. Excluding bitcoin trading, which launched on the app last January, revenue on the app came in at $135 million for the second quarter. That’s up from “negligible” revenue when the app first launched three years ago, Ahuja said on a call with analysts.

Square also launched a debit card for businesses in January, which the CFO said was “driving daily utility” on Square as customers “increasingly used the cash card as a spending tool.” In June, Square said in its shareholder letter that roughly 3.5 million people used the card for daily purchases like food, groceries, transportation or at big box retailers.

Square also announced a deal to sell its food delivery company Caviar to DoorDash for $410 million. The acquisition will be a mix of cash and DoorDash preferred stock and is expected to close at the end of this year. According a securities filing, Square bought Caviar for $44.3 million in 2014.

CEO Jack Dorsey, who also runs Twitter, said in the move was meant to increase Square’s focus on its business and consumer ecosystems.

“We have seen a lot of opportunity to strengthen both these ecosystems but those opportunities require more focus and more investment,” Dorsey said on a call with analysts. “To increase our focus, we decided to sell our Caviar business to DoorDash.”

Square’s stock had been on a tear this year with a more than 40% rally since January, compared to a 20% rise in the S&P 500.

The San Francisco-based company is best known for its credit card processor, payment hardware and growing Cash App. Square also facilitates small business loans through Square Capital. During the second quarter, Square facilitated 78,000 loans totaling $528 million — a 36% jump year over year.

The company also applied for a special industrial loan company license that allows less traditional financial firms to accept government-insured deposits. When asked on the call, Square said it did not have an update on the status of its banking application.

cnbc.com

[Glenn Petersen] DoorDash is buying Caviar from Square in a deal worth $410 million Megan Rose D...

Glenn Petersen — 8/1/2019 9:48:40 PM

DoorDash is buying Caviar from Square in a deal worth $410 million

Megan Rose Dickey @meganrosedickey
TechCrunch
August 1, 2019

DoorDash has reached an agreement with Square to purchase on-demand food delivery and catering business Caviar. DoorDash has agreed to pay Square $410 million in cash and preferred DoorDash stock.

Square bought Caviar about five years ago in a deal worth about $90 million. Now, Caviar has found a new home with DoorDash, the on-demand delivery startup that had been under fire for months regarding how it pays its delivery workers. DoorDash is finally starting to do right by its workers by saying it will no longer subsidize wages with tips, though, that has not gone into effect just yet. However, Sage Wilson of workers’ rights organization Working Washington said doing right by workers would also entail backpay.

“Today’s announcement is another important step forward on our mission to empower local economies,” DoorDash CEO Tony Xu (pictured above) said in a statement. “We have long-admired Caviar, which has a coveted brand, an exceptional portfolio of premium restaurants and leading technology. The acquisition further enhances the breadth of our merchant selection, enabling us to offer customers even more choice when they order through DoorDash. We look forward to welcoming the Caviar team to DoorDash and expanding our partnership with Square in the future.”

With Caviar joining DoorDash, Square’s Caviar lead, Gokul Rajaram, along with all the other Caviar employees, will join DoorDash once the acquisition closes. The deal is expected to close sometime this year.

“Caviar has built a trusted brand with customers and many of the best restaurants,” Rajaram said in a statement. “DoorDash has national scale, complementary restaurant selection, a tremendous logistics platform, and a team that shares our passion and commitment to better serve restaurants, couriers, and customers. I’m incredibly excited to be joining, with the rest of the Caviar team, to help build the future of local commerce.”

For Square, this deal provides the company with an opportunity to focus more on its products for businesses and individuals, Square CEO Jack Dorsey said.

“We are increasing our focus on and investment in our two large, growing ecosystems — one for businesses and one for individuals,” Dorsey said. “This transaction furthers that effort, and we believe partnering with DoorDash provides valuable and strategic opportunities for Square.”

It’s worth noting this isn’t the first time Square has tried to rid itself of Caviar. In 2016, Bloomberg reported Square was wanting to sell Caviar for $100 million but couldn’t find a buyer. At the time, Square was reportedly in talks with Uber, Grubhub and Yelp due to Caviar’s excessive losses. Square, however, does not break out specific Caviar earnings.

Meanwhile, Square just reported its Q2 2019 earnings with net revenues of $1.17 billion (44% y/o/y growth), adjusted revenues of $563 million (46% y/o/y growth) and a net loss of $7 million. In Square’s letter to shareholders, the company described how there will now be more clarity regarding how the company operates.

“Furthermore, DoorDash is already integrated with Square for Restaurants, which streamlines the acceptance of online and in-person orders for merchants, and in the second quarter Cash Boost partnered with DoorDash to provide instant rewards when customers use their Cash Card at DoorDash. We believe continuing this partnership provides valuable and strategic opportunities for Square.”

As Dorsey said on today’s earnings call, “as DoorDash succeeds, we succeed.”

The big players in the on-demand food delivery space are now DoorDash/Caviar, Postmates, UberEats and Grubhub/Seamless. In May, DoorDash raised a $400 million round valuing it at $12.6 billion. Postmates, easily now one of DoorDash’s prime competitors, is currently worth about $1.85 billion and confidentially filed to go public earlier this year. Though, that IPO has yet to happen.

techcrunch.com

[inspbudget] Hello, found out about this board recently, so hope to greatly benefit from the...

inspbudget — 7/19/2019 6:00:07 PM

Hello, found out about this board recently, so hope to greatly benefit from the accumulated wisdom & experience of all of the members here.

I have owned SQ for only a short while, employing a strategy of writing covered calls, and once assigned, writing cash secured puts at the same strike.

Presently sitting on a couple hundred shares with a CC next week @ $78.50. If assigned, I intend to write cash secured Puts at the $78.50 or $75.00 strike. Haven't decided yet.

Any insight and/or comment about today's weak price performance ? Seems like the trend was down right from the opening bell, and not abating at all. rather disappointing to observe. Thinking ( guessing ) that options expiry might have something to do with it.

Look forward to learning from the board

IB

[Zen Dollar Round] Square seems like a great long term play. Many small businesses I've gone to use...

Zen Dollar Round — 7/16/2019 7:06:16 PM

Square seems like a great long term play. Many small businesses I've gone to use Square for payment processing, and the ability to process credit cards right from a smartphone is fantastic.