The 2022 Bloodbath in Four FIN Posts

Number of the Week: $198 million (explanation below)

The 2022 Bloodbath in Four FIN Posts

You may have heard that the first half of 2022 was the worst for US stocks in 50 years. And while of course most fintech companies are not public, many of the largest public fintech companies have fared far worse than the overall dismal market. There are so many possible examples, but consider Robinhood, which has almost evaporated even compared to the tech-saturated Nasdaq index:

As public fintech companies go deeply south, so too do the valuations of private ones, no matter how high they’ve recently flown. On July 1, the Wall Street Journal reported that Sweden’s Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) titan Klarna is seeking fresh investment with a valuation of $6.5 billion, which is about 86% less than the company was ostensibly worth about a year ago.

Thankfully, the market meltdown comes as no surprise to regular FIN readers. Here’s a midyear look at how we’ve pointed to sector weakness since the beginning of 2022.