MercadoLibre (MELI) Stock Hits 52‑Week Low as Credit Risks Loom

MercadoLibre, Inc. (NASDAQ: MELI), Latin America’s e‑commerce and fintech giant, is back in the spotlight for an uncomfortable reason: its stock has just slumped to fresh 52‑week lows, even as the underlying business continues to post some of the fastest growth in global tech.

As of midday on December 11, 2025, MercadoLibre shares trade around $1,971, roughly flat on the day after a steep 5% sell‑off on Wednesday that pushed the stock down from about $2,074 and as low as $1,957 intraday. ^[1]

That move left MELI sitting just above the lower end of its 52‑week range of $1,646 to $2,645 and shaved roughly $5 billion off a market capitalization that now sits near $100 billion. ^[2]

At the same time, the business is still growing revenue close to 40% a year, with analysts largely bullish on the long‑term story even as credit risk and technical indicators flash warning signals.

Below is a deep dive into the latest news, forecasts and analyses as of December 11, 2025, and what they imply for MercadoLibre’s stock heading into 2026.

Where MercadoLibre Stock Stands Today

Fresh quote and fundamental snapshot: ^[3]

Share price: $1,970.73 (Dec 10 close)
Move on Wednesday: –$103.75 (–5.0%)
Pre‑market today (Dec 11): about $1,990
Market cap: ~$99.9 billion
Trailing 12‑month revenue: $26.19 billion
Trailing EPS: $40.97; P/E: 48.1
Forward P/E: ~38.6
52‑week range: $1,646 – $2,645
Beta: 1.42 (volatility above the market)

In other words, MELI has moved from being a momentum darling near all‑time highs earlier in 2025 to a stock that’s now in a clear correction but still priced as a premium growth name.

Motley Fool data syndicated via Nasdaq notes that despite the recent slide, shares remain “up just over 20% in 2025”, lagging the pace of revenue growth as rising credit losses have weighed on earnings. ^[4]

What Triggered the Latest Sell‑Off?

1. Aggressive credit growth and rising provisions

MercadoLibre’s fintech arm, Mercado Pago, has shifted from simple payments to a full‑stack digital bank: deposits, cards, investments, and a fast‑growing lending book. That lending book is now the core of the current debate.

From multiple recent analyses:

In Q3 2025, MercadoLibre’s total credit portfolio reached $11.0 billion, up 83% year over year. ^[5]
Credit cards have become nearly half of that book, with the credit‑card portfolio up 104% YoY to $4.8 billion, representing 47% of loans outstanding. ^[6]
According to Zacks research (via Nasdaq), loans 15–90 days past due stood at 6.8%, and loans 90+ days past due at 17.6%, while Net Interest Margin after losses was 21%, pressured by higher funding costs in Argentina. ^[7]

Across the first nine months of 2025, revenue grew 37% to $20 billion, but the provision for doubtful accounts jumped 58%, leaving net income up only 13% to $1.4 billion. ^[8]

That divergence between top‑line growth and credit costs is exactly what many investors are now reacting to: the growth engine is working, but it’s throwing off more risk.

2. New debt and the cost of being investment‑grade

On December 4, 2025, MercadoLibre issued $750 million of senior unsecured notes due 2033, with a 4.90% coupon, its first bond deal since earning full investment‑grade status from S&P earlier in 2025. ^[9]

The move underscores two things at once:

The good news: S&P’s rating upgrade formalized MercadoLibre as a high‑quality corporate borrower, lowering its long‑term cost of capital. ^[10]
The concern: Issuing new dollar‑denominated debt at a moment when its credit book is expanding rapidly and interest rates in key markets like Argentina remain high raises questions about future interest expense and balance‑sheet risk. ^[11]

Several recent commentaries explicitly connect the bond deal and the rapid credit expansion as key reasons for the current bout of risk aversion in the stock. ^[12]

3. Technical breakdown and bearish quant signals

Technically, MELI has rolled over hard:

AInvest notes the stock fell 3.7% to around $1,997 on Wednesday’s slide, hitting a 52‑week low of $1,957 and trading below its 200‑day moving average (~$2,274) with MACD negative and a cluster of “sell” signals on moving averages. ^[13]
A separate technical report from Stock Traders Daily describes “weak near‑term sentiment”, warns of “elevated downside risk” with no strong long‑term support nearby, and shows multi‑timeframe signals that are weak over 1–5 days, neutral over 5–20 days, but strong over 20+ days — a recipe for choppy trading. ^[14]

Algorithmic forecast platform CoinCodex is also skewed bearish:

Short‑term forecast: MELI is expected to drop about 3.6% to $1,900 by January 10, 2026.
One‑year forecast: $1,531.89, implying –22% downside from current levels.
Yet their 2030 forecast centers around $2,789–$4,464, suggesting potential long‑term upside if the company keeps compounding.
CoinCodex calculates 92% of tracked technical indicators as bearish, with all major daily and weekly moving averages flashing “sell” on December 11. ^[15]

In short: quantitative and technical models currently lean clearly bearish, particularly over the next 6–12 months, even as many fundamental analysts remain positive.

Under the Hood: A Business Still Growing at High Speed

The paradox behind MercadoLibre right now is that fundamentals look very strong even as the stock retrenches.

Q3 2025: 27 straight quarters above 30% revenue growth

In its Q3 2025 results, MercadoLibre reported: ^[16]

Net revenue: $7.4 billion, +39% year over year
27th consecutive quarter with >30% YoY revenue growth
Operating income: $724 million, +30% YoY, 9.8% margin
Net income: $421 million, 5.7% margin

Commerce segment:

Commerce net revenue: $4.2 billion, +33% YoY
GMV: $16.5 billion, +28% YoY in USD / +35% FX‑neutral
Unique buyers: ~77 million, +26% YoY
Items sold: 635 million, +39% YoY, with about 80% of “fast” deliveries within 48 hours
Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina all posted 30–40%+ FX‑neutral GMV growth, helped by lower free‑shipping thresholds and expanding fulfillment.

Fintech segment (Mercado Pago):

Fintech net revenue: $3.2 billion, +49% YoY in USD / +65% FX‑neutral
Total Payment Volume (TPV): $71 billion, +41% YoY
Monthly active users: 72 million, +29% YoY
Assets under management: $15.1 billion, +89% YoY
Credit portfolio: $11.0 billion, +83% YoY

The company is also aggressively scaling logistics: fulfillment capacity increased 41% YoY, leading to record levels of same‑day and next‑day delivery in major markets and lowering unit shipping costs in Brazil and Mexico. ^[17]

CFO Martin de los Santos highlighted that no other company globally has maintained >30% revenue growth for so many consecutive quarters, underscoring the durability of MELI’s growth engine. ^[18]

2024: A massive step‑change in scale

Looking at full‑year figures:

2024 revenue: about $20.78 billion, up 37.5% from 2023’s $15.11 billion.
2024 earnings: $1.91 billion, almost 94% higher than the prior year. ^[19]

A longer‑term view from independent research shows how dramatic the compounding has been:

Revenue rose from about $2.3 billion in 2019 to $20.8 billion in 2024 — roughly an 8x increase in five years. ^[20]

Mercado Pago’s fintech arm has been central to that:

Fintech revenue grew from $0.95 billion in 2019 to $8.62 billion in 2024, matching the growth pace of the commerce segment and reaching about 41% of total company revenue. ^[21]
Credit revenues alone increased around 14x, from $246 million in 2020 to $3.6 billion in 2024, making lending a key profit driver — and risk source. ^[22]

Structural advantages in Latin America

Several recent reports and company disclosures underline how dominant MercadoLibre’s position has become:

E‑commerce leadership: eMarketer estimates that MercadoLibre’s e‑commerce sales in Latin America exceed the combined total of its next 15 competitors, even though roughly 70% of online sales in the region are still up for grabs — a large remaining TAM. ^[23]
SME and employment impact: The company’s impact report suggests it supports over 9.5 million entrepreneurs and SMEs, representing meaningful chunks of GDP in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, and is the main source of income for 1.8 million families in the region. ^[24]
Recognition: In June 2025, TIME named MercadoLibre one of the TIME100 Most Influential Companies, highlighting it as the only Latin American company on the list and recognizing it as the “dominant retailer” in its category. ^[25]

Taken together, the current sell‑off is not about a broken business model — it is about how much risk investors are willing to tolerate to own that model at a premium valuation.

Credit: Growth Engine or Slow‑Burn Risk?

The tension around MercadoLibre right now is almost entirely about credit.

What the latest data shows

Zacks/NIasdaq’s deep dive on December 10 highlighted: ^[26]

The credit portfolio’s 83% YoY growth to $11 billion is “reshaping the company’s operating profile.”
Funding costs, especially in Argentina, are squeezing Net Interest Margin after losses even as asset quality metrics remain broadly stable.
New credit‑card cohorts take time to mature, so periods of aggressive issuance can pressure returns and margins.
The Zacks consensus estimate for Q4 2025 earnings is $11.85 per share, implying a 6% YoY decline, even as fintech revenue is expected to rise around 45% YoY to $3.63 billion.

Nasdaq/Motley Fool analysis of what to watch in 2026 echoes this: rising bad‑debt provisions have slowed profit growth to the low teens despite high‑30s revenue growth, and that, they argue, is a major reason the stock’s 2025 gain (~20%) trails its fundamentals. ^[27]

Competitive pressure in digital lending

The same Zacks report flags intensifying competition from Sea Limited (Shopee/NuBank competitor) and Nu Holdings (Nubank), as both scale personal loans and credit cards across Brazil and Mexico. ^[28]

Both rivals are:

Targeting similar borrower segments
Leveraging sophisticated underwriting models
Competing aggressively on pricing and user experience

That means credit spreads could compress just as MercadoLibre’s book becomes larger and more card‑heavy — a classic recipe for mid‑cycle margin pressure if underwriting isn’t extremely disciplined.

Wall Street vs. the Machines: Who’s Bullish, Who’s Bearish?

Human analysts: mostly positive with big upside targets

Despite the volatility, traditional equity analysts remain broadly constructive:

StockAnalysis.com aggregates 18 analyst ratings with an average “Strong Buy” and a 12‑month price target of $2,873.89 — implying about 46% upside from the latest price. ^[29]
MarketBeat tracks around 20 analysts with a consensus “Moderate Buy” and an average target near $2,849, a high of $3,500 and a low around $2,300 — still roughly 35–75% above current levels. ^[30]
A recent Seeking Alpha article (behind a paywall but summarized in news feeds) upgraded MELI to a bullish rating with a price target around $2,630, or ~26% upside. ^[31]

On the buy‑side:

Several hedge funds and active managers have recently initiated or expanded positions. One widely cited disclosure shows New York–based D1 Capital Partners building a new $301 million stake in MercadoLibre in Q3 2025. ^[32]

Simply Wall St offers a nuanced view on valuation:

Its DCF model estimates a fair value of about $2,922 per share, suggesting MELI is roughly 29% undervalued relative to the current price.
However, on a P/E basis the stock trades around 50.6x earnings versus a “fair” multiple of 34.1x by their framework — expensive relative to that metric. ^[33]

The takeaway: most human analysts see meaningful upside, but they are effectively betting that credit losses stay contained and high growth persists.

Quant and technical models: notably cautious

In contrast, systematic tools are far less enthusiastic:

CoinCodex assigns a bearish overall signal, with 24 out of 26 technical indicators flashing bearish and all major moving averages (SMA and EMA, daily and weekly) in “sell” territory. Its model projects –22% downside over 12 months, even while suggesting long‑term potential out to 2030. ^[34]
Stock Traders Daily’s AI models describe weak near‑term sentiment, neutral mid‑term, and strong long‑term technical signals, with suggested support/resistance bands that emphasize elevated downside risk if the price breaks below recent lows. ^[35]

You effectively get two different answers depending on who you ask:

Wall Street analysts: “High‑quality compounder, buy the dip.”
Quant models: “Trend is broken, risk‑reward near term is poor.”

Valuation Check: Is MELI Still Priced for Perfection?

Based on current data: ^[36]

Trailing P/E: ~48x
Forward P/E: ~39x
Price/Sales (ttm): about 3.8x
Forward Price/Sales (Zacks): around 2.9x, versus 2.1x for the broader internet commerce peer group

Those are elevated multiples, but they sit in the context of:

~40% revenue growth
Nearly 94% earnings growth in 2024
A long runway for e‑commerce and fintech adoption in underpenetrated markets

Simply Wall St’s conflicting signals — DCF says undervalued, P/E model says overvalued — capture the essence of MELI’s valuation: the stock is cheap if its growth and margins hold up, and expensive if credit risk drags profitability down.

Strategic Moves: Robots, Bonds and a Bigger Moat

Beyond lending, MercadoLibre is still investing heavily to widen its moat.

Humanoid robots in the warehouse

On December 10, 2025, MercadoLibre announced a commercial agreement with Agility Robotics to deploy Digit humanoid robots in its San Antonio, Texas facility, with potential expansion into Latin American warehouses. ^[37]

Key points:

Digit will handle physically demanding, repetitive tasks in fulfillment, improving ergonomics and productivity.
The robots’ AI‑driven flexibility allows them to adapt to existing layouts without costly infrastructure redesign.
The initiative mirrors similar humanoid experiments at major logistics players like GXO and Amazon, signaling that MercadoLibre intends to remain in the first wave of logistics automation. ^[38]

For the P&L, this is another example of near‑term capex and opex in exchange for long‑term unit cost and service benefits — the same logic behind its fulfillment network and free‑shipping investments.

Investment‑grade and regional clout

Alongside the S&P investment‑grade upgrade in July 2025 and the $750 million 2033 note, MercadoLibre now has: ^[39]

A market‑leading e‑commerce share in Latin America, with sales exceeding the next 15 retailers combined.
One of the largest fintech user bases in the region, with over 70 million monthly active users and strong Net Promoter Scores (NPS) in Brazil and Mexico.
An ecosystem (marketplace + payments + credit + logistics + ads) that is extremely hard for new entrants to replicate at scale.

This is why growth‑oriented investors and analysts keep coming back to MELI despite the volatility: the economic engine is unusual and extremely difficult to copy.

Key Risks and What to Watch in 2026

Pulling together the latest reports, here are the critical watchpoints for 2026: ^[40]

Credit quality and provisioning
- Do non‑performing loan ratios stay near current levels, or do they rise as the book grows and macro conditions shift?
- Do provisions keep outpacing revenue growth, or do they stabilize?
Funding costs and leverage
- How much new debt will MercadoLibre issue now that it is investment‑grade?
- Will the interest burden significantly dilute earnings growth?
Competition in e‑commerce and fintech
- Can MercadoLibre maintain market‑share gains against Amazon, Sea/Shopee, Nubank and local rivals, especially in Brazil and Mexico?
- How effective are advertising and couponing campaigns (for example, the record Black Friday coupon investment reported recently) at defending share without destroying margins?
Margin trajectory
- Does operating margin improve from around 10% in Q3 2025, or does continued investment in shipping, credit cards, and robotics hold it back?
Regulatory and macro risk
- Ongoing macro instability in Argentina and broader Latin American political risk can affect credit performance, currency translations, and demand.

So Is MercadoLibre Stock a Buy, Hold, or Avoid?

From the fresh research on December 10–11, 2025, the story is not binary:

The bull case
- MercadoLibre has dominant scale in both e‑commerce and fintech in a region where digital adoption is still ramping.
- It has delivered 27 quarters of >30% revenue growth, with 2024 and 2025 results showing no obvious slowdown in top‑line expansion.
- Wall Street analysts still see 35–45% upside over 12 months based on consensus price targets around $2,850–$2,875. ^[41]
The bear (or cautious) case
- The credit machine is running hot, with an 83% YoY portfolio expansion and rapidly rising provisions that are slowing profit growth. ^[42]
- Technicals and quant models are strongly bearish in the near term, with forecasts pointing to potential additional downside over the next year even from already depressed levels. ^[43]
- Valuation remains rich by traditional metrics, leaving less room for error if credit losses spike or growth slows.

For investors, that means MercadoLibre in late 2025 is very clearly a high‑growth, high‑volatility stock:

Those who believe the company can manage credit risk, continue growing revenue at 25–35%+ annually, and leverage its logistics and fintech moat may see the current pullback toward the bottom of its 52‑week range as an opportunity to accumulate a long‑term compounder at a discount to recent highs.
Those who are wary of leveraged consumer lending in volatile emerging markets, or who rely heavily on technical and quant signals, may view MELI as a name to watch rather than own until the charts and credit metrics improve.

Either way, the latest data makes one thing obvious: MercadoLibre’s business momentum has not collapsed — the market is repricing how much risk it is willing to tolerate to own that momentum.

References

MercadoLibre (MELI) Stock Hits 52‑Week Low as Credit Risks Loom — What the Latest Data Says for 2026