Why StoneCo Ltd. (STNE) Went Up Last Week?

We recently published a list of Last Week’s 10 Best-Performing Stocks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE) stands against other last week’s best-performing stocks.

Ten firms outperformed Wall Street’s three major indices over the past week, clocking in double-digit gains on the back of a flurry of company developments that sparked buying appetite.

On a week-on-week basis, the Dow Jones rallied by 1.19 percent, the S&P 500 increased 0.5 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq inched up 0.16 percent.

Meanwhile, 10 firms finished stronger with gains of 10 to 20 percent. In this article, let’s explore the names of last week’s best performers and the reasons behind their rallies.

To come up with the list, we only considered the stocks with at least a $2 billion market capitalization and $5 million in trading volume.

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StoneCo Ltd. (NASDAQ:STNE)

StoneCo saw its share price increase by 14.19 percent week-on-week to close Friday’s trading at $11.10 apiece from $9.72 previously on the back of impressive earnings performance last year.

In its latest earnings release, the Brazilian firm said net income in the fourth quarter of the year rose by 18.1 percent to R$665.6 million from R$563.8 million in the same period a year earlier, as revenues rose 11.1 percent to R$3.609 billion from R$3.248 billion.

Meanwhile, net income for the full year 2024 jumped by 41.3 percent to R$2.2 billion from R$1.557 billion as revenues increased by 10 percent to R$13.257 billion from R$12.055 billion.

Despite the impressive performance, STNE posted a cautious outlook for this year.

“We should prepare for a tough 2025, as projected higher long-term interest rates are expected to impact economic activity. Given interest rate volatility, inflation, and emerging opportunities, prudent capital structure management is paramount,” said STNE CEO Pedro Zinner.

Overall, STNE ranks 6th on our list of last week’s best-performing stocks. While we acknowledge the potential of STNE as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is as promising as STNE but trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.