Retail investing app Acorns is going public.
The company said Thursday it will make its market debut via a special purpose acquisition company merger with Pioneer Merger Group.
Acorns is in an increasingly crowded retail investing and finance field, alongside Robinhood, no- and low-fee brokers TD Ameritrade and E-Trade and fintech stocks such as Square and PayPal.
CNBC’s “Trading Nation” asked its traders on Thursday for how they play the space.
John Petrides, portfolio manager at Tocqueville Asset Management, is backing the fintech space. He says trends in an already-growing space were accelerated during the pandemic.
“We think this entire theme has a long way to run,” he said. “One way to play it is through FINX, which is the GlobalX fintech ETF, which holds a whole basket of these stocks that will benefit from this trade. Also if you want to get exposure to the crypto network infrastructure play, a lot of these companies have exposure to that as well.”
The FINX ETF, which holds Square and PayPal among its top components, has fallen more than 3% this year. It has risen 44% over the past 12 months, though, outpacing the S&P 500.
Bill Baruch, president of Blue Line Capital, likes one fintech play in particular.
“I own PayPal and Square but PayPal has some really great technicals right now. It’s wedging up. It’s held really good support. If it gets out above $260, it could really start to run and we could be back looking at $300,” Baruch said.
PayPal closed Thursday below $260. A move to $300 implies nearly 16% upside.
Baruch also highlights Ally Financial, which specializes in home loans and auto financing among other services.
“The stock itself is actually pretty cheap. It’s cheaper than some of the traditional bank stocks and nowhere near some of the valuations of those fintech companies, but the stock has melted higher. I think we get to $61 here in the near term,” he said.
Ally has outperformed this year, rallying nearly 54%. It is up 194% over the past 12 months.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal and Comcast Ventures are investors in Acorns, and CNBC has a content partnership with it.
