What Happened?
Shares of buy now, pay later company Affirm (NASDAQ: AFRM) fell 3.1% in the morning session after an SEC filing revealed that co-founder and major shareholder Maksim Levchin planned to sell a large block of shares.
The Form 144 filing, dated September 22, 2025, showed a proposed sale of 651,713 shares of Class A stock, with a market value listed at over $58 million. This move can often trouble investors as large sales by key insiders might suggest a belief that the stock's value has peaked. The filing also noted that this was not an isolated event, disclosing three other sales by Levchin in the previous month, totaling over $54 million. Such consistent selling by a founder can weigh on investor sentiment, raising questions about the company's near-term outlook, even as some analysts maintained their ratings on the stock.
The stock market overreacts to news, and big price drops can present good opportunities to buy high-quality stocks. Is now the time to buy Affirm? Access our full analysis report here, it’s free.
What Is The Market Telling Us
Affirm’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 56 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful but not something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The previous big move we wrote about was 8 days ago when the stock gained 5.4% on the news that a consensus of financial analysts raised their average 12-month price target on the stock. According to recent evaluations from 20 analysts, the average price target for Affirm Holdings stood at $87.05, a notable 22.5% increase from the prior average of $71.06. This updated consensus reflects a more optimistic outlook on the company's future performance. The range of analyst targets is wide, with a high estimate of $108.00 and a low of $70.00. The upward revision in the average price target suggests growing confidence among Wall Street experts regarding the stock's potential.
Affirm is up 38.5% since the beginning of the year, and at $86.55 per share, it is trading close to its 52-week high of $92.18 from September 2025. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Affirm’s shares at the IPO in January 2021 would now be looking at an investment worth $890.07.
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