NEW YORK, July 10, 2026, 15:09 EDT
MercadoLibre, Inc. NASDAQ:MELI rose 3.7% to $1,874.19 in late Friday trading, pushing its market cap up by around $3.4 billion to about $95 billion. The price was quoted at 2:54 p.m. EDT as the Nasdaq stayed open.
Recent gains have wiped out most of the upside from Citigroup Inc. NYSE:C’s latest analyst call. João Soares at Citi kept a Hold and set the price target at $1,950, calling the setup “balanced risk-reward” with “funding stability.” That leaves shares with around 4.0% upside from Friday’s close. TipRanks
The cross-market numbers don’t show a straightforward U.S. tech or e-commerce run-up:
| Security | Price | Friday move |
|---|---|---|
| MercadoLibre, Inc. NASDAQ:MELI | $1,874.19 | up 3.7% |
| Sea Ltd. NYSE:SE | $113.75 | gained 4.3% |
| iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (NYSEARCA:EWZ) | $35.89 | added 2.7% |
| Amazon.com, Inc. NASDAQ:AMZN | $245.48 | fell 0.6% |
| Invesco QQQ Trust NASDAQ:QQQ | $725.54 | up 0.3% |
Prices were last checked around 2:54 p.m. EDT.
Sea’s gain along with the rise in Brazilian stocks points to buyers favoring emerging-market consumer growth names. MercadoLibre outperformed the Brazil fund by 1.1 percentage points and beat QQQ by 3.4 points. Amazon dropped. That looks like investors paid up for these companies, not just a general e-commerce trade.
The high valuation meets a tricky Q1. Revenue jumped 49%, but the company more than doubled its provision for doubtful accounts. Operating margin was almost cut in half.
| First-quarter measure | 2026 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue and financial income jumped | $8.845 bln | $5.935 bln | +49.0% |
| Operating income dropped | $611 mln | $763 mln | -19.9% |
| Operating margin narrowed | 6.9% | 12.9% | -6.0 pct points |
| Credit-loss provision climbed | $1.244 bln | $603 mln | +106.5% |
| Provision as share of operating income | 204% | 79% | +125 pct points |
This is from MercadoLibre’s Q1 filing.
The 204% number isn’t a stated company metric. It’s a basic stress test: MercadoLibre set aside a bit more than $2 in expected credit losses for each $1 of operating profit. That compares to 79 cents last year. The provision is just an accounting estimate and doesn’t mean the losses really happened last quarter. But the big increase makes clear fast growth in consumer and card lending is hitting earnings.
Management says the trade-off is no accident. “We are willing to sacrifice these short term profits because we think that the opportunity is worth it,” investor-relations head Leandro Cuccioli told Reuters after the Q1 report. Cuccioli also said the lower free-shipping minimum in Brazil isn’t changing. Reuters
Funding is the flip side of that strategy. CEO Ariel Szarfsztejn said in April, “The toughest challenge for a credit portfolio that is growing so fast is having the right funding mechanisms in order to scale.” He mentioned that MercadoLibre might sell parts of its lending book. The group is also competing with Amazon and Sea’s Shopee for e-commerce market share. Reuters
The trade could still flip. If provisions rise faster than revenue again in the second quarter, or if shipping costs in Brazil keep margins stuck around first-quarter marks, there isn’t much of a buffer to Soares’ target—with only about 4% in hand. If credit funding gets pricier or Friday’s emerging-market rally unwinds, the company’s premium in the stock might get tough to defend.
MercadoLibre has set a provisional date of August 5, 2026, for its Q2 results. Investors are watching the provision-to-revenue ratio after 14.1% last time, and looking for an improvement in operating margin from 6.9%. They’ll also be tracking if the credit arm can keep growing without eating into the profits of the main commerce operations.
