Affirm surges 20% as fintech rallies on tariff pause, but risk remains

The fintech sector is rallying Wednesday following the Trump administration's announcement of a 90-day pause on planned tariffs. Affirm was up 20%, Toast and Block rose 13% and PayPal increased 10%. The 90-day pause doesn't eliminate the threat of tariffs — it just delays it. Investors are still pricing in risk, including inflation, discretionary pullbacks, hardware import costs and credit exposure.Legacy payment networks like Visa and Mastercard, both up 6%, continue to benefit from inflation and their str ...