MercadoLibre (MELI) Stock on December 4, 2025: Bond Deal, New BTIG Price Target and Rising Short Interest

As of Thursday, December 4, 2025, MercadoLibre, Inc. (NASDAQ: MELI) is trading around $2,140 per share, leaving the Latin American e‑commerce and fintech giant roughly 19% below its 2025 all‑time high near $2,645 and comfortably above its 52‑week low around $1,646. ^[1]

At the same time, Wall Street is doubling down on bullish forecasts, with BTIG reiterating a Buy rating and a $2,750 price target today, while multiple analyst consensus datasets cluster around $2,850–$2,875 over the next 12 months. ^[2]

Fresh headlines on December 4, 2025 also include a new $750 million, 7‑year bond deal, a short‑interest update, and a detailed bull-case write‑up aimed at long‑term investors. ^[3]

Below is a deep, news‑style breakdown of what’s happening with MercadoLibre stock today – and how current forecasts and analyses frame the risk‑reward heading into 2026.

Key takeaways for MercadoLibre (MELI) on December 4, 2025

Share price & performance: MELI trades near $2,140, about 19% below its 52‑week and all‑time high around $2,645 and roughly high‑single to low‑double‑digit percentage gains over the past year. ^[4]
Valuation: The stock changes hands at roughly 50x trailing earnings and ~31x forward earnings, consistent with data highlighted in today’s bull‑case coverage and recent valuation analyses. ^[5]
Growth vs. margins: Q3 2025 revenue grew about 39% year‑on‑year to $7.4 billion, marking the 27th consecutive quarter of >30% top‑line growth – but earnings per share missed estimates by ~12% as margins compressed. ^[6]
New on Dec. 4:
- BTIG reiterates Buy with a $2,750 price target, implying roughly 30–35% upside from recent levels. ^[7]
- Benzinga reports short interest at 581,000 shares, or 1.15% of float, up 5.5% since the last report but well below a peer average near 9.6%. ^[8]
- IFR flags a new US$750 million, 7‑year bond issue at T+130bp, underscoring MercadoLibre’s continued access to capital markets. ^[9]
- New 13F updates show some large funds trimming positions, while others increase stakes, leaving institutional ownership firmly elevated. ^[10]
Analyst consensus: Across multiple datasets, MELI carries “Buy” to “Strong Buy” ratings with average 12‑month targets around $2,850–$2,875, implying roughly one‑third upside from today’s price. ^[11]

MercadoLibre stock today: price, performance and valuation

Price and recent performance

End‑of‑day data show MercadoLibre closing on December 4, 2025 at roughly $2,141.82, after trading in a daily range of $2,079–$2,151 on volume of about 280,000 shares. ^[12]

Real‑time quotes from Investing.com and other platforms place the stock around $2,140 intraday, broadly consistent with that official close. ^[13]

Over longer horizons:

The 52‑week range sits near $1,646–$2,645, with the all‑time high set around early July 2025. ^[14]
MELI has delivered high‑single to low‑double‑digit percentage gains over the last 12 months, but the past month shows a ~9% pullback as investors digest Q3 results and valuation debates. ^[15]
The stock’s beta is just above 1, and TradingView pegs its volatility around 3.5%, underlining that this is a high‑growth, higher‑volatility name relative to the broader U.S. market. ^[16]

Valuation snapshot

Today’s bullish thesis article from Insider Monkey, summarizing a widely shared X (Twitter) thread, cites trailing and forward P/E ratios of about 50.6x and 30.8x respectively at late‑November prices near $2,072. ^[17]

That aligns with other data providers, which frame MercadoLibre as:

P/E (TTM): ~50x
Forward P/E: low‑30s
Debt‑to‑equity: around 0.6, suggesting a modest but manageable use of leverage. ^[18]

DCF‑based models from services like Simply Wall St and AInvest peg “fair value” around $2,880–$2,900, implying close to 30% upside from recent trading levels, even as they note that MELI trades at a substantial premium to typical retail/tech peers on simple multiples. Ts2 Tech+1

A separate piece syndicated via Yahoo Finance mentions that one major research house nudged its fair‑value estimate slightly lower, from roughly $2,862 to about $2,847, after Q3, reflecting minor tweaks to growth and risk assumptions rather than a major thesis change. ^[19]

Q3 2025: hyper‑growth meets margin pressure

The fundamental backdrop for today’s moves is still MercadoLibre’s Q3 2025 earnings, released on October 29.

According to the company’s own filings, shareholder letter and associated press release, the quarter looked like this: ^[20]

Net revenue: about $7.4 billion, up 39% year‑on‑year, marking the 27th consecutive quarter of 30%+ revenue growth. ^[21]
Commerce net revenue: roughly $4.2 billion, up 33% in USD (≈38% in FX‑neutral terms). ^[22]
Fintech (Mercado Pago) net revenue: around $3.2 billion, up 49% in USD (≈65% FX‑neutral), with monthly active users at ~72 million (+29% YoY). ^[23]
Credit portfolio: about $11.0 billion, up 83% YoY, as Mercado Crédito expands across consumer loans, cards and merchant financing. ^[24]
Operating income: roughly $724 million, +30% YoY. ^[25]

Where the market got uneasy was profitability:

EPS came in at $8.32, missing the Zacks consensus estimate by about 11.8%, even though revenue beat expectations by a bit more than 2%. ^[26]
Reuters‑linked figures quoted in recent analysis put EBIT margin around 9.8%, the lowest since late 2023, down from about 12.9% in Q1 2025. Ts2 Tech
Net margin slipped into the mid‑single‑digit range (≈5.7–6%), as MercadoLibre leaned hard into free shipping, logistics build‑out and credit expansion. Ts2 Tech+1

In short: demand isn’t the problem – GMV and fintech volumes are booming – but the company is intentionally sacrificing margin to entrench its position in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, a dynamic that has driven both excitement and anxiety in the past two months. Ts2 Tech+1

What’s new on December 4, 2025?

Today’s news flow adds several important datapoints on funding, sentiment and positioning.

1. BTIG reiterates “Buy” with a $2,750 target

Data compiled by Quiver Quant and Fintel show that BTIG analyst Marvin Fong reaffirmed a Buy rating on MercadoLibre on December 4, with a $2,750 price target. ^[27]

Depending on which reference price you use (around $2,120–$2,140 in recent trading), that implies roughly 28–35% upside over the next year. ^[28]

BTIG’s stance reinforces the broader picture from other analyst aggregators:

StockAnalysis: 18 covering analysts, “Strong Buy” consensus, average target $2,874, with a range of $2,650–$3,500 – implying about 34% upside to the average target and potentially more than 60% to the high end. ^[29]
MarketBeat: consensus rating “Moderate Buy”, with an average target near $2,848.82, again pointing to low‑to‑mid‑30% upside versus current prices. ^[30]

2. New US$750 million, 7‑year bond at T+130bp

IFR reports the launch of a US$750 million, 7‑year bond for MercadoLibre at a spread of about 130 basis points over Treasuries. ^[31]

While detailed terms sit behind a paywall, the headline alone tells investors a few things:

MercadoLibre continues to enjoy access to investment‑grade‑style funding in global capital markets.
Management is likely raising fresh capital for logistics, technology and fintech expansion, consistent with previously announced multi‑billion‑dollar investment plans across Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. Ts2 Tech+2Mercado Libre | Investor Relations+2
Additional debt modestly adds to leverage, but the company’s debt‑to‑equity ratio (around 0.6) still looks manageable relative to its growth and cash‑generation profile. ^[32]

For equity holders, the bond deal underscores a key theme: management is still playing offense, prioritizing long‑term scale over short‑term free‑cash‑flow optimization.

3. Short interest edges higher – but stays low

A new Benzinga piece this morning notes that short interest in MELI has increased by 5.5% since the previous report. According to exchange data, there are now about 581,000 shares sold short, representing just 1.15% of the free float, with days‑to‑cover at roughly 1.1 days based on average trading volume. ^[33]

Crucially, Benzinga highlights that MELI’s short interest is far below its peer‑group average of about 9.6% of float, suggesting that outright bearish positioning remains modest, even though some traders are betting on further volatility after the Q3 miss. ^[34]

4. Hedge funds reshuffle positions

New 13F‑linked alerts and institutional‑ownership screens show continued churn – but not an exodus – among large professional investors:

Sands Capital Management trimmed its MELI stake by about 16.1% in Q2 2025, though the stock remains its 8th‑largest position. ^[35]
Guggenheim Capital increased its holdings by 22.1%, while 1832 Asset Management lifted its position by 8.6% in the same period. ^[36]
TechStock²’s November and December round‑ups, drawing from MarketBeat data, show a broader pattern of some funds taking profits or rotating out, while others (including Norges Bank, Invesco, UBS and GQG Partners) add exposure, keeping institutional ownership above 87%. Ts2 Tech

Insider Monkey’s bull‑case piece also reports that 116 hedge funds held MELI at the end of Q2, up from 108 in the previous quarter, placing MercadoLibre among the 30 most popular stocks in hedge‑fund portfolios tracked by the site. ^[37]

Overall, the message from the filings is rotation, not abandonment.

5. Fresh bull‑case coverage

Today’s Insider Monkey article distills a bullish thesis originally laid out by X user DG_Invests. The key points: ^[38]

MercadoLibre operates an integrated ecosystem – marketplace, Mercado Pago payments, Mercado Envíos logistics and Mercado Crédito lending – that feeds powerful network effects.
Marketplace merchants rely on Mercado Pago and Envíos, generating rich data that improves credit underwriting, which in turn drives more commerce and payments volume – a “flywheel” model common to the strongest platform businesses.
With sustained reinvestment into logistics and fintech, the company is framed as a “long‑term compounder” in Latin America’s still‑early digitalization story.
Despite the stock being down almost 20% since a prior bullish profile in May, the article argues that the core thesis remains intact.

That said, Insider Monkey is careful to note that some AI‑focused names may offer even higher return potential in its view, underscoring that even strong bulls see MELI as one high‑conviction idea among many, not a risk‑free bet.

Analyst forecasts and models: what the numbers say

Beyond BTIG’s high‑profile call today, several data providers have updated forward‑looking estimates as of early December.

12‑month price targets

StockAnalysis:
- 18 analysts
- Consensus: Strong Buy
- Average target: ~$2,874
- Range:$2,650 (low) – $3,500 (high), implying ~24% to 63% upside from recent prices. ^[39]
MarketBeat:
- Consensus: Moderate Buy
- Average target: ~$2,848.82
- Highlights a debt‑to‑equity ratio of about 0.61, pointing to a reasonably healthy balance sheet for a growth company. ^[40]
BTIG (Marvin Fong):
- Rating: Buy
- Target: $2,750 (reiterated today), roughly 30% above current levels. ^[41]

Growth forecasts

Simply Wall St’s future‑growth model, updated today, projects that: ^[42]

Earnings will grow at about 27.4% per year over the next three years – faster than both typical savings rates and the broader U.S. market (≈16.1% projected earnings growth).
Revenue will grow at around 19.6% per year, ahead of the U.S. market’s expected ≈10.6% but a touch below the 20% “hyper‑growth” threshold.
Return on equity (ROE) is forecast to reach about 32% in three years – a very high level, if achieved, for a company of this scale.

These figures are consistent with MercadoLibre continuing to behave like a fast‑growing platform, albeit at a slower pace than its earlier years.

Valuation models and “fair value”

Across recent December write‑ups:

Simply Wall St uses a two‑stage DCF to estimate fair value near $2,900, implying roughly 30% upside versus late‑November prices – but cautions that MELI still trades on a P/E multiple far above both its own estimated “fair” multiple and industry averages. Ts2 Tech+1
AInvest arrives at a similar DCF‑based fair value in the high‑$2,800s, highlighting hyper‑growth in fintech revenues, an $11 billion loan book, and a rapidly expanding card and payments franchise as core drivers. Ts2 Tech

Short‑term, more technical sites are also optimistic, though those models should always be treated as rough heuristics:

StockScan puts a 30‑day “forecast” at an average around $2,698, implying roughly 26% upside from a base price near $2,142, with a range between $2,527 and $2,869. ^[43]
CoinCodex expects the stock to peak near $2,358 within the next five days, an ~11% gain from current levels, before normalizing – a pattern driven primarily by historical price action, not fundamentals. ^[44]

Why bulls still love MercadoLibre stock

The bull case being reiterated today is essentially a refined version of the long‑running MercadoLibre story:

Dominant e‑commerce platform in Latin America
MercadoLibre remains the leading marketplace in key markets like Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, and continues to gain share in several categories. Recent partnerships – notably with Brazilian retailer Casas Bahia for large electronics and appliances – are designed to plug gaps where MercadoLibre historically under‑indexed, while leveraging partners’ logistics for bulky items. Ts2 Tech+1
Fintech engine in Mercado Pago
The fintech arm is now nearly as large as the commerce segment, with net revenue growth of ~49% YoY and an $11 billion credit portfolio growing at over 80% year‑on‑year. ^[45]
- Monthly active users (~72 million) and acquiring payment volume are rising rapidly, underscoring a flywheel between payments, loans and commerce. ^[46]
Logistics and free‑shipping offensive In Brazil, MercadoLibre slashed the free‑shipping threshold from 79 reais to 19 reais this year, broadening access to free delivery for lower‑ticket items and helping sellers cut shipping costs by up to ~40%, according to Reuters‑sourced analysis. Ts2 Tech While this has hurt margins, bulls argue it has:
- Accelerated GMV and unique‑buyer growth, particularly in Brazil.
- Strengthened the company’s competitive posture against Shopee and Amazon in key price bands. Ts2 Tech+1
Cross‑border and partnerships Mercado Pago is also an early regional partner in PayPal Global, a cross‑border payments initiative linking major local systems and wallets worldwide. This should: Ts2 Tech
- Make it easier for Latin American consumers to buy globally using familiar wallets.
- Help international merchants take payments from Mercado Pago users more seamlessly.
Big‑ticket capex and long‑term bets Reuters‑based figures compiled in recent articles highlight that in 2025 MercadoLibre plans to invest roughly: Ts2 Tech
- 34 billion reais (~$5.8B) in Brazil
- Around $3.4B in Mexico
- About $2.6B in Argentina
These commitments, focused on logistics, technology and fintech infrastructure, signal management’s willingness to trade near‑term margins for long‑term dominance across its core markets.
Track record of compounded growth With 27 straight quarters of >30% revenue growth, earnings forecasts pointing to mid‑20s+ annual EPS growth, and a projected future ROE above 30%, bulls see MercadoLibre as a rare “compounder” in public markets, especially in emerging economies. ^[47]

What bears and skeptics are watching

The bear (or at least cautious) case hasn’t gone away – if anything, Q3 2025 and recent price volatility have sharpened it.

Margin compression and “growth at all costs” risk After two consecutive quarters of EPS misses despite revenue beats, critics worry that management may keep EBIT margins in single‑digits for longer than bulls expect, especially as free shipping, logistics capex and credit provisioning all pull in the same direction. ^[48]
Credit risk in an expanding loan book MercadoLibre’s $11 billion loan portfolio, while a major growth driver, carries credit and macro risk, particularly in more volatile economies. While recent figures show improving delinquency metrics in the 15–90‑day bucket, skeptics worry about what happens in a deeper downturn or if credit growth outpaces underwriting improvements. ^[49]
Competition from Amazon, Shopee, Shein and Temu A recent Seeking Alpha analysis framed MercadoLibre’s challenge as “double trouble” from Amazon and Chinese platforms like Shein and Temu, particularly in Brazil, where aggressive discounting and cross‑border imports threaten to erode share if MELI under‑invests in price and logistics. ^[50]
Macro and FX exposure With heavy exposure to Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, MercadoLibre is inherently tied to local inflation, currency swings and political risk. Sharp devaluations or new regulations could periodically dent reported USD results and weigh on valuation multiples.
Valuation risk Even after the post‑earnings pullback, MELI still trades at rich earnings multiples relative to both global e‑commerce peers and regional financials. Value‑oriented research – including recent Zacks/Yahoo Finance comparisons – stresses that investors are paying up for growth, and missteps could lead to a swift P/E compression. ^[51]
Rising (though still low) short interest While short interest remains only about 1.15% of float, today’s Benzinga report notes a 5.5% increase since the last update, suggesting some traders are beginning to bet against the stock at the margin, or at least hedge aggressively. ^[52]

Is MercadoLibre stock a buy now? Key questions for investors

Given today’s mix of bullish forecasts, bond funding, margin pressure and competitive threats, whether MercadoLibre is “a buy” right now depends heavily on your time horizon and risk profile.

Here are a few practical questions to consider:

Time horizon:
- If you’re thinking in 5–10‑year terms, you are essentially betting that MercadoLibre will maintain its platform dominance, sustain high‑teens to 20%+ revenue growth, and grow into its premium valuation.
- If your horizon is 12–18 months, your returns may hinge more on whether margins stabilize, Q4/Q1 results beat expectations, and macro conditions cooperate.
Comfort with volatility & premium multiples:
MELI’s history and current valuations suggest that big swings (±20–30% in a few months) are part of the package. If a stock trading at ~50x trailing earnings dropping sharply on an earnings miss would push you to sell in panic, the position size (or the stock itself) may not be appropriate. ^[53]
View on Latin American digitalization:
The bullish narrative assumes that e‑commerce, digital payments and fintech penetration in Latin America will continue compounding for years, and that MercadoLibre will remain one of the main winners. If you disagree with that structural story, the upside case weakens considerably.
Monitoring checklist If you do follow or own the stock, key metrics to watch into 2026 include:
- EBIT and net margins: Do they stabilize back toward the low‑teens EBIT range, or stay stuck around 10% or lower? Ts2 Tech+2AlphaSense+2
- Credit quality: Are delinquency rates and credit losses under control as the loan book expands? ^[54]
- GMV and user growth, especially in Brazil and Mexico, relative to competitors. Ts2 Tech+1
- Execution on logistics and partnerships (e.g., Casas Bahia, PayPal Global). Ts2 Tech
- Regulatory and macro developments in key markets.
How much weight to give consensus targets? Analyst averages around $2,850–$2,875 and DCF fair values near $2,900 clearly frame the stock as undervalued relative to growth prospects – but analysts can (and do) revise targets quickly if margins disappoint again or macro conditions turn. ^[55]

Bottom line:

On December 4, 2025, MercadoLibre sits at the intersection of huge structural opportunity and meaningful execution risk. The latest news – a sizable bond issue, renewed Buy ratings, modestly rising short interest and fresh institutional reshuffling – all point to a stock that remains very much in play for global growth investors.

Whether that translates into attractive returns from here depends on your willingness to ride out volatility, your conviction in Latin American digital growth, and your comfort with a company that is deliberately trading margins for market share.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Always do your own research and, if needed, consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.