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Twitter Is 'Toast' and the Stock Is Not Even Worth $10, Says Analyst (cnbc.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the fwiw dept.

Twitter is "toast" as a company and the stock is not even worth $10, according to a research note published Tuesday, following the departure of another top executive at the social media service. From a report on CNBC: The microblogging platform's chief technology officer, Adam Messinger, tweeted that he would leave the company and "take some time off", while Josh McFarland, vice president of product at Twitter, also said he was exiting the company. Both executives announced their departure on Tuesday. Meanwhile, last month, Adam Bain stepped down as chief operating officer last month to be replaced by chief financial officer Anthony Noto, who has yet to be replaced. Twitter has also lost leaders from business development, media and commerce, media partnerships, human resources, and engineering this year. The departures prompted Trip Chowdhry, the managing director of equity research at Global Equities Research, and a noted "uber-bear" on tech stocks, to issue a note on Tuesday claiming Twitter is "toast" and "not even a $10 stock." "Many investors were foolishly building (an) investment thesis based on complete stupidity," Chowdhry wrote. The analyst said that Twitter's data quality is "horrible". Chowdhry said that many pollsters used Twitter data to predict a Hillary Clinton win in the U.S. election but the fact that Donald Trump won shows that data quality is poor. One reason for this is too many fake users on the platform, Chowdhry claims.

8 of 284 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I can hear crying by dontbemad · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Regardless of your opinions of Trump, it seems pretty ignorant to suggest that Twitter shutting down would completely de-fang him.

    It is almost like you're implying that the shutdown of Twitter equates to the shutdown of social media as a concept.

  2. Yes, yes, let the hate flow through you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let us return to the times when a stock's value depended on the P/E ratio and not the mythical confidence fairy.

  3. Re:I can hear crying by lgw · · Score: 5, Funny

    Donald Trump has (well, will soon enough) the presidential alert system, so he can message everyone's phone instead. With a piercing alarm, at 3AM, and you can't disable this (unless you root your phone). Trump will be fine.

    But where will the Twitter hate mobs go to get their outrage on? What if a scientists wears the wrong shirt - how will they know to be outraged? How will they live if Twitter goes under?

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  4. Re:I can hear crying by Altus · · Score: 5, Funny

    We should be so lucky

    --

    "In America, first you get the sugar, then you get the power, then you get the women..." -H. Simpson

  5. Re:Providing an SJW platform is not a viable busin by mujadaddy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the unprofitable nature of the thing is what is not "a viable business," identity politics or no.

    --
    Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
    "Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
  6. Hate twitter but alternatives seem just as bad by butchersong · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've tried several Twitter alternatives some in beta some not and unfortunately, most of the things I dislike about Twitter I dislike about them as well. You can join a network that has a strong anti censorship stance and this seems like progress but then you end up with almost unending amounts of hate and vitriol in excess even of Twitter. Even on platforms populated by people on my side of the political isle (libertarian republican types)... it is just unpleasant and unhealthy and gets old fast. I don't know how you take a global broadcast like platform and make it into something palatable.

  7. Twitter as a protocol by hipp5 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I say this as a non-user, so I acknowledge that I might be ignorant on the subject. But...

    I never understood how/why Twitter (or really any messaging platform/app) is a business. I mean, tweeting does actually seem like a useful tool for certain communication needs, but I don't understand why it's handled through a single service. Why isn't the tweet simply a protocol, like email? People would then just build different clients/apps/platforms that utilize that protocol, just like we do with email.

    1. Re:Twitter as a protocol by grumpy_old_grandpa · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In "The Internet Is Not the Answer" by Andrew Keen *, he points to some of the problems with today's web services: As opposed to the Internet's golden days of public standards and open protocols, today they are mostly centralized proprietary "winner takes all".

      And the reason is simple: When Paul Baran, Bob Taylor, Bob Kahn, Vint Cerf, Tim Berners-Lee, et.al. invented their respective contributions, they were often government employees and as such not seeking or able to pursue monetary gains based on their inventions, or vehemently opposed to do so. They also understood that their protocols had to be public and open in order to be widely adopted.

      In today's Internet economy, the goal is not universal standards or federated networks (e.g. email, PSTN), but rather reaching critical mass in walled gardens. If you can show you have amassed enough users, your company gets valued billions. IPO, vest, rinse and repeat. So if there was a public social network protocol, you could jump ship, just as you can with a domain and email today. That would not be in th interest of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp . Much better ride the curve till the next bust.

      *) Skip the book; it's a long rant, a gets a bit dull, even if Keen is a good writer.