After coming under heavy selling pressure during the first weeks of the Iran war, Zip Co Ltd (ASX: ZIP) shares have come roaring back.
Although shares in the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) buy now, pay later (BNPL) stock didn't bottom out until 20 March, we won't cherry-pick our dates here.
Instead, we'll focus on those brave ASX investors, lacking today's 20/20 hindsight, who bought the BNPL stock on its downward slide on 17 March. Mind you, this would be after shares had tumbled 54% year to date.
So, if you were one of those daring investors, and if you'd bought $10,000 worth of Zip shares a month ago, just how much would you have today?
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What a $10,000 investment in Zip shares a month ago is worth today
On 17 March, you could have picked up Zip shares at an intraday low of $1.50 each.
Meaning you could have bought 6,666 shares in the BNPL company for $10,000.
Five trading days later, on 23 March, you would have watched shares changing hands for as little as $1.375 each.
Fortunately, in our scenario, you didn't cut and run but held fast in hopes of a turnaround.
And you wouldn't have been disappointed.
On Friday, Zip closed the day trading for $2.33 a share. Meaning the 6,666 shares you bought for $10,000 a month ago are now worth an impressive $15,531.78.
Here's what's been helping to boost the ASX 200 stock.
ASX 200 BNPL stock smashes short sellers
Zip shares enjoyed tailwinds on several fronts this past month, much to the chagrin of the raft of short sellers betting against the stock. Indeed, on Monday, Zip shares were the 10th most shorted on the ASX, with a short interest of 11.2%.
But the stock defied short sellers, boosted in part by renewed hopes of a possible peace deal in Iran. An end to the conflict would ease energy prices and inflationary pressures, which in turn would reduce the chances of further central bank interest rate hikes. And BNPL stocks like Zip have proven to be very sensitive to interest rate moves.
Zip shares also enjoyed a big lift on Friday, closing the day up 13.66%.
Those outsized gains followed the release of Zip's third-quarter (Q3 FY 2025) results.
Investors were overheating their buy buttons after Zip reported total quarterly transaction volume (TTV) of $4.0 billion, up 22.4% year on year.
Zip also reported record quarterly earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBTDA) of $65.1 million. That's up 41.5% from the prior corresponding quarter.
With earnings ramping up, management upgraded Zip's full-year FY 2026 cash EBTDA guidance to "no less than" $260 million.
