High-profile U.S. tech companies tend to grab the clickiest headlines when it comes to the financial news splashed across the internet these days, but none of them compare to a Singapore-based gaming, e-commerce and payments company on a performance basis over the past 18 months.
In fact, it’s not even close.
New York-listed shares of Sea Ltd
SE,
have rallied almost 900 % over that time frame to become the world’s best-performing large-cap stock, according to Bloomberg News. As you can see, Apple
AAPL,
, Tesla
TSLA,
and the S&P
SPX,
lag far behind:
Short-sellers placed a record amount of bets against Sea in June, Bloomberg data show, but they are running for cover amid the growing belief that the loss-making company could emerge as the Tencent
TCEHY,
and Alibaba
BABA,
of the region.
Overall, however, a bearish position of more than $3 billion still remains, which is about 8% of the stock’s float, according to financial analytics firm S3 Partners.
“Mark-to-market losses may have forced shorts out of their position,” S3’s Ihor Dusaniwsky, told Bloomberg News. “But they may still have a negative outlook.”
Sea had a rough start to its first year in the public market back in 2017, but its path to the top of the large-cap heap began with Free Fire, a battle royale mobile game that has many as 80 million daily active users across more than 130 markets worldwide. Now, the company’s e-commerce and financial services units have also become driving forces for the overall bullish business case.
The company is expected to announce its second-quarter results on Aug. 20.
At last check, Sea shares were up more than 4% to take part in a broad market rally on Wednesday that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
jump almost 300 points.