The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) came back from the Easter break with a bang last week. Over the four days, the benchmark index rose 2.4% to 6,995.2 points.
While a good number of shares climbed higher with the market, some performed better than others. Here's why these were the best performing ASX 200 shares last week:
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Silver Lake Resources Limited (ASX: SLR)
The Silver Lake share price was the best performer on the ASX 200 last week with a gain of 18.2%. A number of gold miner's raced higher last week after the price of the precious metal climbed to a one-month high. The easing of bond yields was supportive of the gold price over the week.
EML Payments Ltd (ASX: EML)
The EML share price wasn't far behind with a gain of 17.1% over the four days. Investors were fighting to get hold of its shares following the announcement of the acquisition of Sentenial Limited for up to 110 million euros (~A$170.7 million). Sentenial is a leading European Open Banking and Account-to-Account (A2A) payments provider. It utilises a cloud-native, API-first, full stack enterprise grade payment platform. Among its customers are 4 of the top 7 banks in the United Kingdom.
Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT)
The Afterpay share price was on form last week and surged 15.1% higher. Investors were buying the payments company's shares following the release of an update on its bi-annual Afterpay Day sale in the United States. According to the release, the U.S. sale drove a 35% increase in new active customer to its platform compared to the same period last year. This means the total number of customers that have signed up to Afterpay in the U.S. now exceeds 16 million. Clearly increasing competition isn't slowing its growth.
Ramelius Resources Limited (ASX: RMS)
The Ramelius share price was a strong performer and charged 13.3% higher over the week. As with Silver Lake, this was driven partly by a rebound in the gold price. But also giving its shares a boost was its third quarter production update which revealed that it achieved its guidance. This went down well with analysts at Macquarie. In response to the update, the broker retained its outperform rating and $1.80 price target on its shares.
