The Afterpay Touch Group Ltd (ASX: APT) share price has continued its strong run and stormed to a new all-time high on Thursday.
In afternoon trade the payments company's shares are up over 3.5% to $33.07.
This latest gain means the Afterpay share price is up a massive 175% since the start of the year.
Why is the Afterpay share price at an all-time high?
As well as getting a boost from positive trade war developments today, investors have been fighting to get hold of the company's shares since the release of an impressive full year result last month.
In FY 2019 Afterpay Touch posted a 140% increase in underlying sales to $5.2 billion, an 86% increase in total income to $264.1 million, and a 130% lift in active customers to 4.6 million. This was ahead of even the most bullish estimates.
Once again, it was its U.S. operations which stole the show. Underlying sales in the world's largest retail market reached almost $1 billion in FY 2019 and currently have a run-rate in excess of $1.7 billion.
Its strong form in the U.S. has continued since the end of the financial year, leading to their being 2.1 million active customers in the country as of August 21. This accounts for 40% of its total customers on that date.
And another bit of news that got investors excited was the positive start that its Clearpay business has had in the United Kingdom. According to its full year update, Clearpay has on-boarded a whopping 200,000 UK customers in the first 15 weeks of operation.
This is even higher than the US and the Australia business at the same time post-launch. Which certainly bodes well for the company given how management estimates that it has a $700 billion opportunity in the UK.
Should you invest?
Whilst its shares are undoubtedly expensive and better buying opportunities may present themselves in the coming months, I would still be a buyer of its shares today if you planned to hold onto them for the long term.
The same applies for fellow buy now pay later company Zip Co Ltd (ASX: Z1P), which has also delivered impressive growth this year.
