While the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) has been on form in 2021 and is charging higher, a number of shares are performing even better.
Here's why these ASX 200 shares have been rocketing higher this year:
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Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT)
The Afterpay share price has stormed 21.6% since the start of the year. There have been a number of catalysts for this impressive form. One of those was a broker note out of Morgan Stanley, which revealed that its analysts had retained their overweight rating and lifted the price target on the payments company's shares to $136.00. It made the move after looking at app downloads. The broker believes these have been very strong in the key US and UK markets. So much so, it is expecting Afterpay to report 13.6 million active customers for the first half of FY 2021. This will be a 37.4% increase from 9.9 million active customers at the end of FY 2020. Also giving its shares a lift was the highly successful IPO of rival Affirm in the US.
Pro Medicus Limited (ASX: PME)
The Pro Medicus share price has started 2021 very strongly and is up 20.4% year to date. Investors have been fighting to get hold of the health imaging software company's shares after it announced another major new contract win. Pro Medicus revealed that it has signed a seven-year contract worth $40 million with Salt Lake City based Intermountain Healthcare. According to the release, the deal will see its Visage 7 Viewer and Visage 7 Open Archive products implemented across all of Intermountain's radiology and subspecialty imaging departments. This was the company's fifth major contract win in the space of just six months.
Zip Co Ltd (ASX: Z1P)
The Zip share price has been on fire and is up 40.3% since the start of 2021. The catalyst for this was the release of the buy now pay later provider's second quarter update. For the three months ended 31 December, Zip delivered a 103% increase in transaction volume to a record $1.6 billion. A key driver of this growth was Zip's US-based QuadPay business, which recorded a 217% increase in transaction volume to $673.1 million. QuadPay also reported a 180% lift in customer numbers to 3.2 million and a 655% jump in merchants to 8,400.
