Damien Kantor
03/05/2021 4:39 PM
Clarín.com
Economy
Updated 03/05/2021 17:14
No one can take away the credit, nor is it written that it will happen again.
At 11:35 am on Monday, January 25, Mercado Libre's share
crossed the US $ 2,000 barrier for the first time
and the company created by Marco Galperin reached a market value of US $ 100,000 million.
Afflicted by the bad climate for technology companies, "Meli"
accumulates a decrease of close to 30% with respect to its historical maximum
on the New York Stock Exchange.
This Friday, the market valuation of Mercado Libre was around
US $ 72,000 million
, which implies
a steeper fall than that of Amazon
, its main rival in Brazil and Mexico.
And this despite the takeoff of electronic commerce during the pandemic, which
allowed it to invoice more than US $ 20,000 million for online sales in the region
, which represents a rise of 46%, 5 compared to 2019. Much of the volume comes from of 3 of the 18 countries where it operates: Brazil (US $ 10,970 million), Argentina (US $ 4,410 million) and Mexico (4,060 million), indicates a report by eMarketer, a portal specialized in retail trade.
"It is a bad time for all technology companies, but
Mercado Libre is affected more by the situation in Brazil
, its largest market," explains Gustavo Neffa, from Research for Traders.
The comparison with Amazon is inevitable, although their differences are abysmal.
So far this year, the Jeff Bezos giant's share fell 9.3%, which contrasts with
the devaluation of more than 18% in Mercado Libre
.
José Bano, an analyst at InvertirOnline, puts it in perspective.
"In all the ups and downs there is a component of overreaction.
The rise was not to get so excited nor in the decline it is to be super concerned,
" said the analyst.
Nery Persichini, from GMA Capital, highlights that the two eCommerce giants, Amazon and Mercado Libre, started 2021 positively, like the rest of the technology companies, due to the phenomenal monetary injection and the expansion of fiscal stimuli.
"What changed," he explains, "are the expectations of
a possible rate hike by the Fed
in the US, which impacts the value of the most volatile stocks, such as technology stocks."
Market watchers pay particular attention to the abundance of dollars ("since March 2020, the monetary base in the US has increased 84%," says Bano) and its impact on the stock values of companies that had been growing in amazingly, like Tesla, Amazon and Mercado Libre itself.
"
Today money is abundant, but it is no longer so cheap due to the rise in the interest rate,
" graphs Neffa.
The climate changed and went from euphoria to uncertainty.
"Investors are looking for more traditional assets: banks, industries, base metals, commodities and inflation-adjustable bonds," Persichini completes.
Today Walmart is more attractive than Tesla, whose stock
rose this year to US $ 876 and this Friday it was below US $ 600
.
Despite everything, Mercado Libre's valuation began to rise on March 23 and it became
the most valuable Argentine company in the region
.
Currently,
more than double
its market value since the start of the pandemic.
The fall of these days, clarifies Neffa, is due "more to the devaluation of the Real and to the impact that Brazil has on its businesses."
Days ago, Galperin's company announced that in 2021 it will invest US $ 1.8 billion there to strengthen its logistics network.
As for the differences with Amazon, his alter ego, Bano emphasizes that there are many, especially in the matrix of his businesses.
"
Bezos's is more diversified
: he has AWS (Amazon Web Services), his line of data storage in the cloud, which represents 20% of his income, and also Amazon Prime, his streaming platform and the sale of advertising within the site, "lists.
In fact,
Mercado Libre itself is an Amazon customer
since its platform is based on AWS.
The swings in the stock market have an impact on the pockets of their founders.
And in this sense, the differences are also noticeable.
According to the Billionaires ranking produced by Forbes in real time, Bezos is the richest man on the planet and accumulates a fortune of US $ 176,000 million.
Galperin, meanwhile, ranks 431 on the list,
with $ 6.1 billion
.
This is US $ 2 billion less than last January.