Since surging higher in the post-pandemic months of 2020 and 2021, Zip Co Ltd (ASX: ZIP) shares have become well-known for making big moves.
Sometimes these big moves are higher.
Sometimes they're lower.
In late-afternoon trade on Friday, shares in the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) buy now, pay later (BNPL) stock are down 6.2%, trading at $2.49 apiece.
This sees the share price down 26% in 2026 and down 12.9% over the past month.
Despite that rather gloomy picture, you're unlikely to hear investors who channelled their inner Warren Buffett to be greedy when others are fearful and bought shares at the one-year closing lows on 20 March complaining.
So, if you invested $10,000 at those lows, just how much would you have today?
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What a $10k investment in Zip shares in March is worth today
By mid-March, Zip shares had been in a downtrend for five months.
And it would have taken a brave investor indeed to buy $10,000 worth of the beaten-down ASX 200 stock at the 20 March closing price of $1.45 a share.
But that bravery would have paid off handsomely, even with today's big slide factored in.
On 20 March, you could have bought 6,896 shares in the BNPL stock for $10,000.
At the current price on Friday, those shares are now worth $17,171. That's a gain of 71.7% in just four months.
So, while I certainly don't suggest trying to time the market, it's worth keeping an eye open for ASX shares like Zip that may have been oversold for reasons that have little to do with the company's fundamentals.
What's been happening with the ASX 200 BNPL stock?
Zip reported its third-quarter results (Q3 FY 2026) on 17 April.
Highlights included a 22.4% year-on-year increase in total transaction volume (TTV) to $4 billion. And total income of $335.2 million was up 20.2%.
Also grabbing investor interest, Zip reported quarterly earnings before tax, depreciation and amortisation of $65.1 million. That was up 41.5% year on year and marked a record quarterly earnings result for the company.
One negative from the report was the increase in bad debts, with net bad debts rising to 1.93% of transaction volume, up from 1.64% in Q3 FY 2025.
Commenting on those results, Zip CEO Cynthia Scott said:
Zip's resilient business model continues to drive increased profitability at scale, delivering record cash earnings of $65.1 million, up 41.5% year on year. Operating margin expanded 292 basis points [2.92%] to 19.4%, reflecting strong unit economics and significant operating leverage.
Zip shares closed up 13.7% on the day of the results release.
