When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Snap Interactive shares jump as investors await Snap Inc. IPO
Mar. 2, 2017
Shares of Snap Interactive Inc. (STVI) which trades over the counter on the OTCQB exchange, soared 13% in active morning trade Thursday. Volume of 22,500 shares was nearly six times the full-day average.
The company, which provides social networking and dating applications, has not released any news since Feb. 14, when it said Chief Executive Alex Harrington was named to the Global Dating Insights 2017 Power Book list of the most influential people in the online dating industry.
The surge in the stock comes as investors wait for shares of Snapchat parent Snap Inc. SNAP, +0.82% to debut on the NYSE.
I'm trying to figure out what the transaction costs are, with regards to buying and selling. What do you need the spread to be, so you can actually make some money? If the transaction costs eat up all the gains... I'm just trying to follow along.
I'm trying to figure out what the transaction costs are, with regards to buying and selling. What do you need the spread to be, so you can actually make some money? If the transaction costs eat up all the gains... I'm just trying to follow along.
Transaction fee depends on what broker you use. Some brokers charge $4.95 per trade (e.g. Fidelity, Schwab, OptionsHouse), others like TD Ameritrade and ETrade charge $9.99 (will be lowered to $6.95 next week since Fidelity and Schwab recently lowered theirs), others are free (e.g. Robinhood).
Some brokers give you X free trades if you open a new account with them.
NBC invested $500 million in Snapchat IPO as part of its ambitious investment in digital media
1 Hour Ago
NBCUniversal, a unit of Comcast and parent of CNBC, invested $500 million in Snap during its IPO as part of a strategic investment and partnership, according to sources.
The stock allocation by Snap to NBCUniversal appears to be the only one made to a new strategic investor, which would make NBCUniversal the only U.S. media company with a stake. Other companies could buy shares in the open market.
The investment is the latest in a series of aggressive bets in digital media by NBCUniversal under Steve Burke, its chief executive. He has made investments in digital media assets including $400 million in Buzzfeed and $200 million in Vox. The company recently acquired SportsEngine, a digital business for youths involved in local team sports. It also bought Awesomeness TV, which has a big presence on YouTube as part of its deal for DreamWorks. In total, NBC has spent about $1.5 billion on digital assets in the past 18 months.
NBCUniversal courted Evan Spiegel, Snap's co-founder, for the past year, sources said, and both companies have been working on deepening their relationship. NBC worked with Snapchat on the Rio Olympics in partnership with BuzzFeed, which generated over 2 billion views. NBC is also producing several series on Snapchat, including "The Voice," "SNL" and E! News' "The Rundown," and more are in the works.
For Snap, the investment by NBCUniversal represents an important vote of confidence from a major media company and may help to justify to other investors Snap's $28 billion valuation. NBCUniversal agreed to hold the shares for at least a year, the sources said.
The partnership offers NBCUniversal an opportunity to create new programming using its content and brands to reach millennials, which traditional media companies and advertisers have found increasingly hard to reach on linear television. The only other major strategic investors in Snap are Alibaba and Tencent.
So far, the investment for NBCUniversal paid off: After Snap's trading debut, the stock soared 44 percent, turning the $500 million investment into about $720 million on day one.
Transaction fee depends on what broker you use. Some brokers charge $4.95 per trade (e.g. Fidelity, Schwab, OptionsHouse), others like TD Ameritrade and ETrade charge $9.99 (will be lowered to $6.95 next week since Fidelity and Schwab recently lowered theirs), others are free (e.g. Robinhood).
Some brokers give you X free trades if you open a new account with them.
What I wanted to see happen yesterday.
$29.25 :+$4.77 (+19.47%)
$30 by end of day?
theres a fee for both buying and selling a stock unless you use a service that doesn't have a fee.
so you have to factor that in when you sell a stock. Obviously you want to sell the stock at a price that'll cover any fees otherwise you'll end up losing money.
Even bigger bets were made that SNAP will be under $18 by April 21.
38,224 April 21 $18 puts bought today.
I'll wait until Monday to see how SNAP trades. I might have to buy some of those Apr. 21 $18 puts myself. They should be reporting quarterly earnings around that time too.
Of the options that traded today, 75% were for puts (bearish) vs 25% for calls (bullish)
Snapchat snags its first 'buy' rating; shares rise
Snap shares rose Monday after Wall Street finally gave the social media company its first "buy" rating.
Monness Crespi Hardt initiated coverage on the parent company of Snapchat with a "buy" rating and price target of $25. The parent company of Snapchat was up more than 1 percent Monday in premarket trading.
"We recognize we are potentially giving too much credit for unproven skills in building a business, rather than just a product, but we see more to Snap than many suggest," analyst James Cakmak said in a note to investors, noting the company has the potential to outpace the revenue growth of its peers.
Snap initially raised some eyebrows on Wall Street, with analysts flagging the company's slowing user growth, widening losses and lack of voting rights for outside investors.
On Friday, Snap closed down nearly 2 percent, marking an 11.5 percent decline for the week. The stock fell 18.5 percent in the week that ended March 10.
On Thursday, Snap shares fell below $20 for the first time, nearing an IPO price of $17 per share, after it got hit with another sell rating.
Snap nears $24 debut after flurry of analysts, including Goldman, initiate coverage
March 27, 2017
Snap shares soared Monday, hovering around the $24 level it began trading at earlier this month, after several Wall Street analysts initiated coverage on the stock, including a "buy" rating from Goldman Sachs.
The parent company behind the popular disappearing messaging app Snapchat was up 3 percent Monday in premarket trading. The stock is up 14.1 percent over the past week, according to FactSet.
Goldman said Monday that while Snap carries a higher risk profile, the firm believes it also comes with higher reward potential.
"With Snap's large, valuable, and highly engaged user base generating ad inventory and the monetization path in mobile now well worn, we believe the potential for outperformance as the company continues to innovate against the growing mobile opportunity outweighs those early stage risks," Goldman analyst Heath Terry said in a note to investors, giving the company a price target of $27.
On Monday, several other analysts including JPMorgan, Stifel, and Bank of America initiated coverage on the stock.
Snap: 6 'buy', 6 'sells', 4 'holds'
Goldman Sachs - (Buy)
JPMorgan - Neutral
Morgan Stanley - Overweight
Oppenheimer - Perform
Stifel - (Hold)
BofA - Neutral
Credit Suisse - Outperform
Deutsche Bank - (Buy)
RBC Capital Markets - Outperform
Cowen - Outperform
Jefferies - (Buy)
Citi - (Buy)
UBS - Neutral
JMP - Market Outperform
Monness Crespi Hardt - (Buy)
Needham - Underperform (Sell)
Atlantic Equities - Underweight (Sell)
Morningstar - (Sell)
Aegis - (Hold)
Susquehanna - (Hold)
Nomura Instinet - Reduce (Sell)
Pivotal Research - (Sell)
CFRA Research - (Hold)
FBN Securities - Sector Perform
Cantor - Underweight
MoffettNathanson - (Sell)
Mizuho - Neutral
Drexel Hamilton - (Buy)
PiperJaffray - Neutral
The latest ratings came after Snap had a rough start on Wall Street shortly after its March 2 debut, with analysts flagging the company's slowing user growth, widening losses, and lack of voting rights for outside investors. Last week, Snap stock moved higher after it snagged its first two "buy" ratings.
Snap Bulls Come Out in Force as Company Receives 10 Buy Ratings From Wall Street
Mar. 27, 2017
More than half of the 26 banks who underwrote Snap's initial public offering disclosed their research on Monday morning, and the vast majority were positive.
A stampede of Wall Street bulls came out in defense of Snap (SNAP) on Monday, as close to a dozen firms initiated coverage of the stock with a Buy rating.
The moves sent Snap's stock up 2.8% to $23.38 on Monday morning.
Until today, Snap and the 26 banks who were underwriters of its initial public offering were in a 25-day quiet period enforced by the Securities and Exchange Commission, preventing them from publishing research, as well as company employees from talking about the stock. Underwriting banks typically take a neutral or bullish stance in their analysts reports, largely due to investments they make in the stock at the time of the IPO, but also because they've usually had more face time with the company's management team.
Underwriters were allotted 200 million shares in the offering, and lead underwriters Morgan Stanley (60.5 million) and Goldman Sachs (49.6 million) bought the largest number of shares, followed by JP Morgan (26.5 million) and Deutsche Bank (20 million), according to Snap's amended S-1 filing.
So far, more than half of the 26 underwriting banks have made public research on Snap.
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs both gave the stock an Overweight rating this morning, while underwriting firms Credit Suisse, Jefferies and six other banks also handed Snap the equivalent of a Buy rating. That means Snap currently has 12 Buy ratings, nine Neutral ratings and six Sell ratings from Wall Street.
JPMorgan initiated coverage of the stock with a Neutral rating, saying that it will "take more time" for Snap to prove that it has "real staying power," as well as to justify its hefty $20 billion-plus valuation.
Heath Terry, Goldman Sachs (Initiated with a Buy rating, $27 Price Target)
"Snap is a venture stage investment in the public markets, something unseen in recent years where nearly all internet companies waited until later stages of growth and profitability to go public. While this clearly carries a higher risk profile, we believe it also comes with higher reward potential."
.
Brian Nowak, Morgan Stanley (Initiated with an Overweight rating, $28 PT)
"We are bullish on Snap's ability to monetize its highly engaged daily active user (DAU) base (~160mn DAUs spending an average of 25-30 mins/day). First, we believe Snap's engaged and millennial audience (86% of N. American DAUs aged 13-34) and unique online video ad inventory are in-demand by advertisers, and that Snap's growing direct ad sales efforts, recently-opened advertising API (with 15 ad selling partners), and continued ad unit innovation will lead to ad budget gains."
.
Doug Anmuth, JPMorgan (Initiated with a Neutral rating, $24 PT)
"While we are more confident in Snap's revenue growth potential, our Neutral rating is driven by: 1) An increasingly competitive social media landscape which includes Facebook and others implementing successful Snap features across a broader user base, potentially weighing on user growth; 2) Lack of profit until early 2019 as costs are tied more to engagement than revenue and it will take time for Snap to scale; and 3)Our view that...valuation is already at a healthy premium-12x 2018E revenue of $2.6B."
.
Mark Mahaney, RBC Capital Markets (Initiated with an Outperform rating, $31 PT)
"Snap Crackle Up: Snap has become an innovation leader -- for both consumers and advertisers -- in arguably the single fastest advertising medium today -- Mobile. It has also emerged as one of the leading Media Platforms for Millenials. We believe that if it sustains its current level of innovation, it can sustain premium growth for a long time and scale to profitability."
.
Jason Helfstein, Oppenheimer (Initiated with a Perform rating)
"We are initiating coverage of Snap Inc. with a Perform rating, based on valuation...We believe Snapchat has a unique position within the social media industry; the platform's focus is on few-to-few communication, unlike rivals Facebook, Twitter (TWTR) , which focus on network memories and real-time follow, respectively."
.
Stephen Ju, Credit Suisse (Initiated with an Outperform rating, $30 PT)
"With this in mind, it is an investment we enthusiastically underwrite given the following key points: (1) we believe SNAP shares at current levels are exhibiting attractive risk/reward to the upside, with downside risk of ~21% in our Grey Sky scenario and upside potential of ~32% to our target, (2) it is a scarce asset that offers advertisers access to a coveted younger demographic; and (3) Snap is a margin expansion story with revenue compound annual growth rate exceeding cost of sales CAGR."
.
Brian Fitzgerald, Jefferies (Initiated with a Buy rating, $30 PT)
"Snap looks well positioned for growth as advertisers clamor to serve ads to its large audience of deeplyengaged users, many of whom are in the attractive millennial demographic and are located in high-value ad markets."
.
Ronald Josey, JMP Securities (Initiated with a Market Outperform rating, $28 PT)
"With an at scale, highly engaged, and growing audience, we believe Snap's product is differentiated and its Delete by Default approach is increasingly attracting a wider audience. This as monetization ramps and despite being just six quarters in from beginning to sell ads, 60% of the Kantar top 200 brands are advertising on its platform."
.
John Blackledge, Cowen (Initiated with an Outperform rating, $26 PT)
"We expect Daily Active Users to grow 14% annually '17-'22 coupled with rising advertising monetization of the platform to drive revenue growth and higher incremental margins over time. We estimate SNAP's share of global Mobile advertising (x-China) rises from 1% in '17 to ~5% by '22."
.
Eric Sheridan, UBS (Initiated with a Neutral rating, $24 PT)
"We believe Snap's stock reflects a roughly equal risk/reward from current levels as investors try to balance the open questions on multi-year performance: extension of Snap beyond its core demos, the monetization ramp and how the P&L scales to profitability."
.
Scott Devitt, Stifel (Initiated with a Hold rating, $24 PT)
"Our long-term forecasts project Snap to grow revenue at +99% over the next three years to reach over $3 billion in revenue in 2019, driven by increased monetization through Snap ad products, high user engagement, and a broadening user base."
.
Brian White, Drexel Hamilton (Initiated with a Buy rating, $30 PT)
"Snap is a very unique tech company that should not be pigeonholed in a particular industry, or investors risk missing the forest for the trees. Snap views itself as "a camera company" and we believe this fosters a mindset for innovation to transcend the boundaries of its competitors."
Social-media giant introduces three new camera-centric features to its main Facebook app
March 28, 2017
Facebook Inc. is taking another shot at Snapchat.
On Tuesday, the social-media giant introduced three new camera-centric features to its main Facebook app, including one that allows users to create photo and video montages that vanish within 24 hours—just like Snapchat’s Stories. Facebook is also making the camera accessible with one swipe to the right and adding a variety of filters and masks. The third feature is a direct-messaging tool.
The features, which roll out globally later this week, are intended to lower the bar for what kind of content can be shared on Facebook and counter a yearslong decline in posting. Facebook aims to carve out an informal space within the app that allows for off-the-cuff sharing without the permanence of the news feed.
“Every piece of content is not created equal in terms of who you want to share it with and where you want it to go,” said Connor Hayes, Facebook product manager overseeing the launch. User research showed that people want to share both private moments with one person and the “monumental moment” with everyone on Facebook, he added.
Over the past two years, Facebook has closely studied Snapchat to better understand its appeal among younger users. On Snapchat, the camera is available from the moment users open the app, encouraging them to create richer content than on Facebook, which still opens to a text box. Facebook is trying to encourage the same kind of activity by making the camera accessible with just one swipe.
Facebook’s mimicry casts a shadow over Snap Inc., which has said its growth has slowed since Facebook ramped up the pressure.
Facebook Stories marks the company’s fourth clone of Snapchat Stories — introduced three years ago — since last summer. Facebook’s photo-sharing app, Instagram, first copied the format last August. Its success prompted Facebook to start testing similar versions across its suite of apps. Last month, Facebook adapted the format to WhatsApp with a feature called Status. Earlier this month, it launched Day within Facebook Messenger.
Mr. Hayes acknowledges Snap as the pioneer of the format. He said that users are sharing more often in markets where both Instagram and Facebook Stories have been available in testing.
“Our view is that over time, as people create mostly photos and videos and share mostly photos and videos, that Stories is going to be the way that they’re going to want to do it,” he said.
Facebook Stories initially won’t be available to verified accounts from publishers and celebrities. Facebook said it wants Stories to focus first on connecting friends.
Snap Inc.’s ambitious effort to create television-like content has old and new media companies alike clamoring to learn how to produce shows for Snapchat’s lucrative young audience.
Over the past several months, Snap has signed original show deals with NBCUniversal, Turner, A+E Networks, Discovery, BBC, ABC, ESPN, Vice Media, Vertical Networks, the NFL and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. It is also in discussions with CBS and Fox, according to people familiar with the matter. On Thursday, Snap plans to unveil another show deal with Food Network-owner Scripps Networks Interactive which will produce offshoots of existing TV hits like “House Hunters” and “Chopped.”
Snapchat hopes to have two to three new episodes of original shows airing each day by the end of the year in the “Stories” section of the app, which displays collections of snaps from friends, as well as stories from media outlets. The shows will be three to five minutes long.
Snap is plunging headlong into developing original shows—which are presented vertically like the rest of its app—to keep its 158 million users engaged and boost revenue growth in its nascent life as a public company. Ad revenue growth, which could come from its original show efforts, is key to supporting its valuation of more than $25 billion. And shows could encourage its users—who already spend 25 to 30 minutes a day on the app—to stick around even longer.
To that end, Snap hasn’t been shy about doling out extensive and detailed notes to its TV partners—much like what TV network executives themselves give writers and showrunners.
Beyond reality fare, the company is looking for scripted dramas, daily news shows, horror, documentaries, animated shows and more. To make room for scripted shows, Snap says it may tweak the app to allow for binging and catching up (the few shows it has aired so far have disappeared within 48 hours).
While media companies have had various disagreements with YouTube and Facebook , TV companies are flocking to create original shows for Snapchat. That is in part because Snap executives including Mr. Bell, a former News Corp. executive, embrace certain old media values like scarcity and promoting a select group of premium content above user-generated fare.
Unlike streaming services like Netflix , Snap shares detailed data on performance with its show partners—everything down to when people “tap out” of a particular episode.
Snapchat is only offering show creators an ad-revenue share, rather than paying upfront for content. Media executives say the approach works for now because the deals are short term and “all of us are still enamored with their audience,” said Henry Ahn, Scripps’ president of content distribution.
Plus, Snapchat shows are much cheaper to produce than network television. A Snapchat episode can cost anywhere from $6,000 to upward of $45,000 with marquee talent and higher production value, media executives say.
“When you start cutting checks in the early days,” you get sucked into a cycle, says Mr. Bell. He said Snap wants to build an ad-based business model that will make shows lucrative profit-generators for creators within three to five years. Shows can also become profitable nearer term, he said: some of Snap’s early shows already make money.
On “Discover,” Snapchat’s publisher platform, the company offered at least some partners 70% of the ad revenue if they sell the ads and a 50-50 split if Snapchat does. People familiar with the show deals said the company is offering only a 50-50 ad split for original shows.
Barry Poznick, MGM’s president of unscripted television who is developing comedies for the app, said Snap executives are far from “kids in cubicles” offering notes and instead make suggestions with more authority than some TV executives because of their data.
“We thought we were going to teach them how to make TV, and instead, they are teaching us,” he said.
Snap Casts Wider Net for Advertisers With New Self-Service Tool
May 4, 2017
Snap Inc. on Thursday announced new tools to help a broader base of marketers quickly buy ads on Snapchat, an important step in its ambitions to rival online ad giants such as Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
A new self-service product called Snapchat Ad Manager lets marketers buy any of Snap’s ad formats, including videos, and target them to certain groups of users, Snap said in a statement.
Previously, marketers had to buy ads directly from the Snapchat sales team or through Snap’s ad partners, which cater to more-specialized advertising such as those targeted based on weather.
With the new tools, marketers will be able to purchase ads themselves using a credit card starting in July, Snap said—which could encourage a broader base of companies to experiment with its ad offerings.
Similar buying tools have helped propel mammoth online advertising businesses for Google and Facebook by attracting spending from small- and medium-size businesses in addition to major companies. Other online platforms, such as Twitter Inc. and Pinterest, followed in their footsteps by offering their own self-service ad-buying tools.
Ad revenue growth is important for supporting Snap’s valuation of more than $25 billion because nearly all of Snap’s revenue comes from advertising. Snap recorded 2016 revenue of about $404.5 million.
Snap said it built the new tool with needs of smaller businesses in mind. More than 20 brands, including online sneaker marketplace GOAT and movie ticketing app Atom Tickets, had early access to the ad manager. Snap plans to roll out the tool in countries including the U.S., Canada, U.K., France, Germany and Australia.
03-02-2017, 02:22 PM
��
