RJ Hamster
BNZI Is Winning Wall Street Attention.
A message from Huge Alerts
Banzai International, Inc. (BNZI) Stands Out as a Zacks Buy as Earnings Momentum, Sector Strength, and Analyst Upgrades Point to Growing Market Confidence!
Banzai International, Inc. (NASDAQ: BNZI) is emerging as a notable name in the Business Services space, backed by strong validation from Zacks Equity Research. The company currently holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy), a designation reserved for stocks with improving earnings outlooks and favorable near-term performance potential.
BNZI is part of the Business Services group, which includes 238 companies and currently ranks #12 out of 16 sectors under the Zacks Sector Rank framework—an indicator that the group is outperforming much of the broader market.
This sector-level strength adds another layer of support to BNZI’s bullish profile.
What truly sets BNZI apart is the sharp upward movement in earnings expectations. Over the last three months, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the company’s full-year earnings has climbed an impressive 45.2%, reflecting rising analyst confidence and a strengthening fundamental outlook.
With a diverse customer base of more than 140,000 clients, including well-known enterprises such as Cisco, Hewlett Packard, New York Life, and Thermo Fisher Scientific, BNZI develops AI-powered marketing and business automation solutions that help companies attract, engage, and convert customers more efficiently. Its platform includes tools for video engagement, webinars, content creation, SEO, marketing automation, and AI-driven website and landing page generation through its Superblocks platform.
BNZI’s recent rating upgrade is therefore more than symbolic—it represents a measurable improvement in the company’s earnings power and positions the stock for potential upside as market participants respond to this positive shift.
Friday’s Bonus News
Affirm Is Expanding Buy Now, Pay Later Services for Rent Payments
Reported by Jordan Chussler. Date Posted: 1/26/2026.
At a Glance
- Buy now, pay later services are booming in popularity, with a projected CAGR of 27% through 2033.
- BNPL provider Affirm is about to start offering its services for rent payments..
- Analysts believe the stock is trading around 25% lower than where it will be in a year from now.
Over the past month, financial stocks have been hit hard. Of the S&P 500’s 11 sectors, the group has been the worst performer, down 2.73%.
With the full-year and Q4 2025 earnings season underway, the sector—which includes banks, investment firms, insurance companies, real estate firms and fintechs—has produced mixed results.
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The big banks have been punished by the market despite generally beating earnings per share (EPS) expectations. Asset management giant BlackRock (NYSE: BLK) reported an EPS beat and quarterly revenue growth of more than 23%, yet the stock remains down over 2%.
Smaller firms in the financial services sector are seeing similar pressure despite strong earnings. Online bank Ally Financial (NYSE: ALLY) reported record EPS growth, but the stock slid more than 3%.
Now, one prominent buy now, pay later (BNPL) operator—which reports earnings on Feb. 5—is positioning itself to both shake up the financial sector’s recent performance and expand its own market in a way that could drive top-line growth.
While Big Banks Bring Valuation Concerns, BNPLs Could Be a Bright Spot
The surging popularity of BNPL is hard to overstate. From vacations and fast food to electronics and groceries, usage has skyrocketed in recent years.
Financial services firm Empower estimates that 90 million Americans used BNPL in 2025, with particularly high adoption among Millennials and Gen Z — 48% and 44%, respectively.
Empower also found that:
- More than half of BNPL users are under 35, reflecting strong adoption among Gen Z (the fastest-growing cohort entering the workforce) and Millennials (the largest living adult generation).
- Monthly BNPL spending increased almost 21%, from $201.60 in June 2024 to $243.90 in June 2025.
- Over half of Gen Z (55%) say BNPL helps them better manage their finances.
That popularity appears set to continue. Industry consultant Grand View Research forecasts the global BNPL market to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 27% between 2025 and 2033, expanding the industry from $9.5 billion in 2024 to more than $80 billion by 2033.
What BNPL companies sell is credit — and in 2026, credit is in high demand.
Buy Now, Pay Later Is Coming for Your Rent
On Jan. 20, it was reported that Affirm Holdings (NASDAQ: AFRM) will begin offering its BNPL service for rent payments.
The fintech company—one of the largest BNPL players with a market cap near $24 billion—plans to give customers the option to split monthly rent into two equal, biweekly payments with 0% interest and no fees for those installments.
According to CBS News, the limited pilot program will run through a partnership with New York-based Esusu, which reports consumer payment information to major credit agencies.
An Affirm representative said the company will underwrite every application and approve only those customers it believes can “responsibly afford to repay.” While not the first BNPL provider to explore rent payments, Affirm could see meaningful top- and bottom-line growth from the initiative, extending a streak of earnings beats that dates back to Q2 2024.
When the company reported Q1 2026 earnings on Nov. 6, 2025, it posted EPS of $0.23, well above analyst estimates of $0.11, and quarterly revenue rose nearly 34% year-over-year. The move into rent payment processing could act as a near-term catalyst, even as a limited pilot.
What Wall Street Thinks About Affirm Holdings?
Since its January 2021 IPO, Affirm had not been profitable—until the final quarter of 2025, when the company reported net income of $59 million.
That milestone was driven largely by nearly 46% average annual revenue growth over the past five years.
The performance has attracted analyst attention: 19 of the 29 analysts covering Affirm assign the stock a Buy rating.
By consensus, AFRM carries a Moderate Buy rating with an average 12-month price target of $89.17, implying roughly 25% potential upside. Institutional ownership is about average at just over 69%, though over the past 12 months outflows have exceeded inflows by $19.37 billion to $3.91 billion.
After shares of AFRM rose more than 29% over the past year, many of those outflows may reflect profit-taking.
Based on Affirm’s financial health, the stock has also been in the Green Zone for more than nine months, according to TradeSmith.
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