The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) is selling off on Friday, down 0.5% to 7,421 at the time of writing. In morning trade, it dipped as low as 7,382 points.
Amid the red, the S&P/ASX Information Technology (INDEXASX: XIJ) index stands tall, up 1.43%. Its performance is headlined by none other than the Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT) share price.
At the time of writing, shares in the ASX's largest tech stock are up 2.9% to $127.12.
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How come the Afterpay share price is shooting green on Friday?
Nasdaq finishes mixed overnight session in positive territory
The ASX 200 might be influenced by the mixed overnight performance of Wall Street.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 both fell 0.18% and 0.15% respectively, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.13%.
The Nasdaq managed to stay in positive territory, supported by the likes of Amazon.com, Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), Netflix Inc (NASDAQ: NFLX) and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) all eking out small gains of less than 1%.
Afterpay's US-listed rival is surging
Perhaps more relevant for the Afterpay share price was the overnight performance of Affirm Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: AFRM).
Affirm shares rallied 7.13% overnight and have surged more than 75% since 27 August.
On 9 September, Affirm released its fourth-quarter results. Its revenue jumped 70.7% year-on-year to US$261.8 million vs. consensus expectations of US$225 million, according to CNBC.
In addition, the company gave encouraging guidance for the current quarter. It expects revenue to be between US$240 million and US$250 million.
This could be a positive takeaway for the Afterpay share price, given Affirm is the largest BNPL provider in the United States.
Square share price lifts overnight
The Square Inc (NASDAQ: SQ) share price also rallied overnight, up 2.53% to US$255.09.
The Afterpay share price has largely been tracking the performance of Square ever since the $39 billion takeover offer on 2 August.
The scheme implementation deed will see Afterpay shareholders receive a fixed exchange ratio of 0.375 shares of Square Class A common stock for each Afterpay share they own on the record date.
After Square's overnight performance, this values the Afterpay share price at approximately $122.57 at today's exchange rates. That's up from yesterday's $119.58.
