Sign in

Joel Rikers

Vice President and Equity Research Analyst at William Blair

Joel Rikers is a Vice President and Equity Research Analyst at William Blair, specializing in coverage of the information technology sector with a particular focus on software and cloud services companies. He has covered notable firms such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Workday, and his investment calls have led to an above-average success rate, with portfolio returns tracking between 15-20% over three years according to public analyst ranking platforms. Rikers began his professional career in 2013 as an associate at BMO Capital Markets, later joining William Blair in 2016, where he advanced to his current role. He holds a CFA charter and maintains FINRA registration with Series 7, 63, and 86/87 licenses.

Joel Rikers's questions to Affirm Holdings (AFRM) leadership

Question · Q1 2026

Joel Rikers asked about top-of-wallet behavior and substitution dynamics for the Affirm Card, as well as the quantifiable share of card with Amazon and Shopify partnerships.

Answer

Max Levchin, Founder and CEO, reported nice trends in discretionary spend capture and higher starting points for new Affirm Card cohorts. He stated that Affirm is capturing spend that wouldn't have happened with credit cards. He added that for Amazon and Shopify, there's significant 'green space' and runway for continued growth beyond initial launches, through ongoing optimization and new product integration.

Ask follow-up questions

Best AI for Equity Research

Performance on expert-authored financial analysis tasks

Fintool-v490%
Claude Sonnet 4.555.3%
o348.3%
GPT 546.9%
Grok 440.3%
Qwen 3 Max32.7%