CE 100 Index Slumps 4.3% as Fiverr and Block Plummet After Earnings Reports

The CE100 Index’s slide far outpaced the drops seen this past holiday-shortened trading week across the broader markets.  Earnings weighed on stock trading, as all pillars lost ground and the overall Index slipped by 4.3%.

Fiverr shares plummeted 23%, leading the Work segment of the CE100 Index down by more than 5.4%

This past week, the company detailed that it had seen growth in its services business, which includes subscription-based revenues, cementing freelancers’ relationships with buyers over several months.  However, as noted during an earnings call, a muted macro environment persists, seemingly trumping better-than-expected guidance.  Revenues were $103.7 million, up 13.3%; guidance had looked for a 9% to 12% gain.

Services revenue soared by more than 102% year over year to $30.1 million.  Revenue growth in the current quarter is expected to accelerate to a range of 11% to 16% year over year, per company guidance.  But active buyers — the Fiverr clients that purchase services and contract with freelancers — were down from last year’s 4 million, now standing at 3.6 million. Spending per buyer was up 9% year on year to $302.

Chief Financial Officer Ofer Katz said on the call that “going into 2025, given that marketplace revenue is largely tied to GMV volume, and we have yet to see signs of macro improvement, we expect that growth of this revenue segment will continue to be muted… Given that macro rebound is a matter of when, not if, when it does rebound, we expect our marketplace will be one of the first areas to experience the uplift.”

Pay and Be Paid Names Slide

Block’s 18.5% slide led the Pay and be Paid segment of the CE100 Index  to decline 5.1%.

In the company’s most recent earnings results, the company missed Wall Street’s short-term estimates for its fourth quarter 2024 earnings and revenue numbers.  Block’s leadership emphasized the strong engagement with Cash App, which saw gross profit per active user increase by 13% year over year to $76 in Q4 2024. The company reported a 10% year-over-year increase in gross payment volume to $58.9 billion in Q4 2024.

Affirm’s shares lost 15% in the wake of announcing it has expanded its partnership with Shopify.  According to the announcement, the joint efforts will make Affirm the exclusive pay-over-time provider for Shopify’s Shop Pay Installments program in the U.S. and Shopify’s home country of Canada, with plans to expand into the U.K.

Mastercard shares lost 1.3%. As reported here, Mastercard announced a package of digital and financial management tools aimed at the Middle Market segment.  Under the heading  Mastercard Mid-Market Accelerator, the suite of solutions is aimed at companies with annual revenues between $10 million and $100 million or about 50-250 employees.  As part of the rollout, Mastercard is collaborating with issuers such as Citizens and FinTech providers such as Navan (expense management) and Trovata (cash flow management).  The accelerator ensures that companies can access these services directly through their existing banking relationships, streamlining adoption and making it easier for issuers to provide tailored solutions.

Also within the payments pillar, Visa said this past week at its investor day that it sees a $520 billion annual revenue potential ahead for its value-added services (up from $9 billion last year).

Visa’s stock lost 1.5% on the week.

MercadoLibre Gains Ground

MercadoLibre was one of the few standouts to show positive momentum this week, as shares gathered 7.1% in the Shop pillar of the CE100 Index.

As reported by PYMNTS, the platform’s latest results showed double-digit growth in unique active buyers and items sold across the company’s marketplace, along with momentum in its credit card business.  Gross merchandise values (GMV) were up 8% to $14.5 billion, items sold gathered 27% year over year to 525.5 million, and the total payments volumes soared 33% to $58.9 billion. The company’s credit portfolio was up 74% year over year to $6.6 billion. Unique buyers gained 24% to 67.3 million individuals and items sold per buyer gained 3% year over year, to 7.8.