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As major economies of the world continue to shake off the damages done by the pandemic, the major stock markets have also started to shine, showing signs of positivity.
Out of all the significant indices, it would not be wrong to state that the technology sector has emerged as a winner, outperforming all other sectors. Be it the AXIJ, SRIT or NDXT, the tech stocks are riding high on the bullish market sentiment and have posted vital gains.
Healthy economic data from the US and China
The US jobs report released on Good Friday revealed that services activity marked a substantial elevation in March. Also, the services sector in China has gained momentum featuring a sharp rise in sales in past three months.
The positive developments from the two economic heavyweights have positively swayed the share market indices. In totality, it was a decent week for the global economy and the stock markets.
The NASDAQ 100 Technology Sector closed the week’s session at 8,298.55, up 1.53% or 124.80 points, which was followed by the S&P 500 Information Technology closing the week at 2,466.55.
While the tech-heavy Taiwan market reached its all-time pinnacle point, the Australian fintech stocks too registered remarkable gains.
Source: © Alexandersikov | Megapixl.com
The Information Technology Stocks on the ASX
With the world markets bouncing back, the S&P/ASX 200 Information Technology index AXIJ too showed signs of recovery. The S&P/ASX 200 Information Technology (AXIJ) closed the week at 2,148.70, up 0.72% or 15.40 points. The index has climbed more than 2% this week, hitting a record high, led by stocks such as EML Payments Limited (ASX:EML) which made headlines because of its entry into the European open banking market.
The online aerial photomapping firm, Nearmap Ltd (ASX:NEA) advanced as much as 3.7%, hitting its 4-week high.
The booming BNPL sector
This week, the payments solutions provider EML Payments acquired European open banking company Sentenial, including its open banking product Nuapay.
EML Payments is one of the top gainer, rising as much as 12.8% to A$5.800 and hitting a record high on 8 April 2021. The Company closed the week in the green zone at A$5.750 per share, up 0.349%.
Other big players of the segment, Afterpay Limited (ASX:APT) climbed as much as 4.7% during the week, ending at A$121.470, up 1.216% and buy-now-pay-later firm Sezzle INC. (ASX:SZL) ended the week substantially higher at A$8.410 per share, up 2.686%. These were followed by fintech firm Douugh Limited (ASX:DOU) which climbed as much as 9.4% on Thursday backed by a robust Q3 performance and ended the week 2.941% up at 0.175 per share.
The buy-now, pay-later sector is on a roll with the latest Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) figures painting a bright picture. As per the ASIC, the number of BNPL transactions rose from 16.8 million in FY 2018 to 32 million in FY2019.
Following in the footsteps of the bigwigs of this sector, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX:CBA), which is one of the four major banks of Australia, is also making its entry into the sector.
Conclusion
Well, all the buzz generated by the Australian BNPL sector is on the back of different post-COVID tailwinds – the rise of ecommerce and the spurt of digital payments to name a few, while the IT stocks are getting immense strength from all the good news coming in from China and the US.
Needless to say, the stocks belonging to the IT benchmark will be on investors’ radar in the coming week.
