SQ Stock Price Falls 4.18%: Why It Happened

• The stock price of Square Inc (NYSE: SQ) fell 4.18% as it went from a previous close of $222.34 to $214. This is why it happened.

The stock price of financial tech company Square Inc (NYSE: SQ) fell 4.18% as it went from a previous close of $222.34 to $214. One of the biggest triggers for the stock price decrease has to do with an analyst rating.

Piper Sandler analyst Christopher Donat had reiterated a “Neutral� rating on Square following a review of the most recent month’s top downloads list on the Apple App Store. And he found that the Google Pay App was appearing in the top 10 downloads – which could be a threat to the growth of its rivals including Square.

One of the reasons why the Google Pay App appeared in the top 10 is due to a redesign of the platform. Donat noted that PayPal’s new crypto offerings are likely helping U.S. downloads and the Cash App offered by Square has been decelerating.

“On Nov. 18, Google launched a new version of the Google Pay app in the United States. We view the new app as the driver of download activity and the reason Google Pay is the #5 Finance app in Apple’s App Store (it briefly held the #1 position last week). The redesigned app has new functionality for P2P payments, merchant loyalty programs, and syncing account data. We view the enhanced functionality of Google Pay as a competitive threat to PayPal and Square and will keep an eye on app download activity in coming months,� wrote Donat in a research note via StreetInsider.

Disclosure: I have a small SQ position in my stock portfolio.