When stocks become popular, many investors buy them without knowing much about the underlying businesses. This is understandable to some extent. When a stock is going up and people are talking about it, a natural reaction is to want to be part of the fun.

However, without knowledge about a company, it's a lot harder to know whether to hold on to a stock when times are tough. Understanding a business is key to successful long-term investing. So let's try and understand MercadoLibre (NASDAQ: MELI).

This Latin American fintech has become a popular stock -- outpacing the S 500 by 78 percentage points over the last five years -- thanks to impressive results. But is it worth owning now? Here are five things every investor needs to know about MercadoLibre before buying shares.

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Source Fool.com