The Splitit share price has been on a rollercoaster this week

The Splitit Ltd (ASX:SPT) share price has had a rollercoaster of a week. Should you invest?

It certainly has been a rollercoaster of a week for the Splitit Ltd (ASX: SPT) share price.

In afternoon trade the payments company's shares are on course to close the day 5% higher at $1.58.

a woman

What happened this week?

If the Splitit share price does close the week at $1.58, it will be a fraction higher than where it closed last week.

On paper this may appear to be a largely uneventful week for its share price, but it was anything but that.

On Monday of this week the Splitit share price climbed as high as $2.00. At this point the company's shares were up 27% for the week and an incredible 900% since hitting the ASX boards with a listing price of 20 cents in late January.

After peaking at $2.00 it didn't take long for profit taking to weigh heavily on the company's shares.

In fact, Splitit's shares traded as low as $1.26 on Wednesday, meaning they had fallen a whopping 37% in the space of just two trading days.

What is Splitit?

Splitit is an Israel-headquartered payments company that provides a cross-border credit card-based instalment solution to businesses and merchants.

Its service allows consumers to pay for a product using their existing credit cards but divide the total cost across as many as 36 interest-free monthly payments.

Why are its shares on fire?

Investors have been fighting to get hold of its shares on the belief that it could be the next Afterpay Touch Group Ltd (ASX: APT).

But it is important to remember that it is still very early days for the company and there's a long road ahead before it will be challenging the Afterpay platform.

For example, in its recently announced preliminary final results, Splitit revealed sales of just US$789,920.

I feel that this makes its market capitalisation of $413 million look a little stretched and investors should restrict it to their watch list at this point.

Motley Fool contributor James Mickleboro has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool Australia owns shares of AFTERPAY T FPO. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. This article contains general investment advice only (under AFSL 400691). Authorised by Scott Phillips.

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