Snap Inc. (SNAP) fell double digits Tuesday, marking two days of losses after two days of gains as investors and analysts grapple with how the newly-public social media company will confront mixed expectations and significant competition.
NEW DATA SHOWS USER DECELERATION: Aegis Capital’s Victor Anthony, whose firm initiated Snap with a Hold rating and $22 target Thursday, argues today that user growth “remains an issue” for Snapchat. App tracking data suggests that daily actives “continued to decelerate” in January and February to just 3% growth versus last quarter’s 15%, the analyst says, adding that the figure represents roughly half of Instagram’s growth during the period. Anthony notes that while the tracking data usually fails to directly match Snap’s reported metrics, it has nevertheless proven “directionally consistent.”
SNAP NO ANALYST DARLING: Tuesday’s commentary builds on a number of negative analyst reports surrounding Snap, with Needham, Atlantic Equities, Pivotal Research and Aegis all issuing Sell or Neutral-equivalent recommendations and warning of execution risk, an inexperienced management team, concerns of stalling user growth, a potential undeveloped analytics and marketing back-end, as well as competition from Facebook (FB), Alphabet (GOOG) and others.
INDEX EXCLUSION: Another issue potentially weighing on Snap shares may be the mounting expectation that the stock could be excluded from the S&P 500 Index or other benchmarks. according to a person familiar with the situation. The Wall Street Journal’s Richard Teitelbaum reported last week that the fact that Snap’s A shares carry no voting rights may prevent the stock from being included in the S&P 500, S&P MidCap 400 or S&P SmallCap 600 indexes, citing a person familiar with the situation. Subsequently, Reuters has reported that a group representing large institutional investors has approached S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI, looking to bar Snap Inc. from their benchmarks due to the fact that that the company offers investors non-voting shares.
