This hot stock has skyrocketed in bid to be Southeast Asia’s tech giant

It gets far less attention than Tesla, the FAANGs or even the Robinhood flavour of the week.

Yet Sea Ltd. has quietly become the world’s best-performing large-cap stock, stoking a debate on Wall Street over whether the Singapore-based gaming, e-commerce and payments company is the next great internet colossus or just Exhibit A in a global tech bubble that’s destined to burst.

For now at least, bulls have the upper hand. Swelling optimism that loss-making Sea may one day become both the Tencent and Alibaba of Southeast Asia has boosted its New York-listed shares by more than 880 per cent in the past 18 months, the largest gain worldwide among companies with a starting market value of at least US$1 billion. Short sellers who placed record wagers against the stock in June are retreating at an unprecedented pace.

If Sea chief executive officer Forrest Li is paying attention to any of this, he’s not letting on. The 42-year-old billionaire said in a video interview that he’s been working seven-day weeks in the office since April, leading his company through what may be its most pivotal year. Demand for Sea’s mobile games and online-shopping platform has surged during the pandemic, and the company is bidding on a Singapore digital-banking license to accelerate its push into financial services. Li is also looking for potential acquisitions in gaming, logistics and e-commerce.

“We don’t like to think too much about our success or how we got here,” he said when asked about Sea’s stock price. “It doesn’t matter if the environment is good or bad. It doesn’t change a company or a person.”