Earlier today the Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT) share price continued its meteoric rise and stormed higher again.
The payments company's shares rose 3% to hit a record high of $59.64.
Why is the Afterpay share price rising again?
There have been a couple of potential catalysts for Afterpay's share price rise on Thursday.
The first is a broker note out of Ord Minnett this morning which reveals that its analysts believe the buy now pay later provider's shares can go higher from here.
According to the note, the broker has retained its buy rating and almost doubled its price target to $64.70.
It believes that Afterpay could end the financial year with almost 10 million active customers.
Apple Pay integration.
Another possible catalyst is the company's integration with Apple Pay.
Although it has been a couple of weeks since the company actually partnered with Apple, it was only today that it emailed customers to advise them of the integration.
This appears to be good timing by the company ahead of its push into the U.S. bricks and mortar retail market.
While the Afterpay app is easy enough to use for transactions, it is still no comparison to using Apple Pay, which is effortlessly simple. I feel making the process as easy as possible when entering the offline U.S. market could be key to increasing its adoption and usage.
Is the Afterpay share price in the buy zone?
I still believe Afterpay is a buy for investors that are intending on holding its shares for the long time.
Given the increasing popularity of the payment method, its massive opportunity in a $5 trillion U.S. retail market, and possible expansions into mainland Europe and Asia in the future, I feel Afterpay has the potential to grow enormously over the next decade and become a real force in the payments industry.
Though, given its high valuation, I think it would be prudent to limit an investment to just a small part of a balanced portfolio.
