The AfterPay (ASX: APT) share price is up 4.8% to $16.87 this morning to back up a gain of around 15% last Friday after the buy-now-pay-later group released another positive trading update to the market for the quarter ending December 31 2018.
The share price is rising again today after sell side analysts raced to upgrade price targets on the stock including Goldman Sachs that has reportedly slapped a "buy rating" and $19.25 share price target on the business.
AfterPay has raised well over $100 million in 2018 from investors with Citi acting as its institutional book builder in its recent capital raising, with Bell Potter as a fee-earning co-manager on the side of the capital raising.
Unsurprisingly, Bell Potter is one of AfterPay's biggest cheerleaders and the broker reportedly had a $23.63 price target on the stock before Friday's update.
As such the shares are likely finding buyers today on the back of positive broker recommendations, which to be fair have so far been right in being bullish on the company and stock.
AfterPay's U.S. growth is impressive and could be just getting started, with it already having signed up 260,000 consumers to its platform, with a total of 2,200 retailers 'live' or in the process of being onboarded.
Despite the expensive valuation, I would not be surprised to see the AfterPay share price move higher in 2019.
