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Well........ - no control by stock owners - no immediate plans to produce profits - whistleblower lawsuit in the works by former employee who claims they ser

Well........ - no control by stock owners - no immediate plans to produce profits - whistleblower lawsuit in the works by former employee who claims they seriously inflated user metrics - a shitload of shares about to become free trading, with a declining share price, you've got to think alot of employees are going to go stampeding to the exits rather than holding - record short interest by the street - one of the main IPO banks (JP Morgan) just cut their target from $20 to $18 for the stock, - The same bank doesn't have an almost guaranteed BUY rating on the stock, and has rated it as a HOLD/Neutral, which is the equivalent of a sell in sell side analyst parlance - a miss on their first earnings - their biggest rival, Instagram, is doing well in competing with them, and they have Facebook's large pile of money and audience behind them - and the macro climate of people expecting a market cooling coming soon, in those cases people tend to flock away from speculative companies to the old fashioned kind that make money. SNAP might be a long term good company, but its going to be a rocky ride in the short term.

BlackjackCF 9y ago
I really liked Snapchat. It was new and fun, and innovative when it first came out. But they've really failed to fight against FB coming into their market with Instagram.
ThrustVectoring 9y ago
> a shitload of shares about to become free trading, with a declining share price, you've got to think alot of employees are going to go stampeding to the exits rather than holding > record short interest by the street This is double counting the same thing. The reason there's short interest is because there's a bunch of employees that would like to sell now but cannot. I suspect that much of these short positions will close out when the lock-up ends and employees sell into the market. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't back-channel deals along the lines of "you short it now and close when my lockup period ends, and I'll use my locked-up long position to unofficially hedge for you".
- module0000 9y ago
  Unofficial(as in, one entity hedging for a separate entity) hedging is 1) illegal and 2) very inefficient and prone to screw you at tax time. But realistically... you know non-wealthy stockholders(ie employees) want to cash in, so you buy into the retail sell-off on lockup day, bid it up 3 points, then close when you see the other retail buyers chasing the rally. Closing several thousand long shares should be sufficient to run their stops, depress the price, and present you with another buying opportunity at or near your original entry price. All that said.. guessing what will happen with the market is how you lose your money, and fail at day trading before you ever got started.
  - alasdair_ 9y ago
    If, say, a person owns $5MM of snapchat stock and their spouse knows this, can their spouse (acting rationally) not simply short or buy a put option for some portion of this? They didn't agree to anything in the RSU agreement and no long as the spouse wasn't acting on insider information and simply wanted to hedge, I'm not certain a crime would have been committed, unless the person owning the shares actually asked their spouse to perform this action.
    - module0000 9y ago
      On paper: yes, that sounds good. BUT, if the SEC comes knocking...they operate in a way that looks like "guilty until proven innocent", and having your spouse do it appears at first glance as guilty. The RSU agreement would be important to see though, they may have some bits about spouses and immediate family - or they may not(in which case what you described is 100% above board). If anyone holding RSU's is (legally) able to show the RSU agreement, it would be insightful to read.
- whatok 9y ago
  I don't know what their RSU agreement is like but typically you are not able to short your own stock.
  - 9y ago
nihonde 9y ago
Also, no foothold and lots of strong incumbents in Asia, so no growth opportunities there.

BlackjackCF 9y ago

I really liked Snapchat. It was new and fun, and innovative when it first came out. But they've really failed to fight against FB coming into their market with Instagram.

ThrustVectoring 9y ago

> a shitload of shares about to become free trading, with a declining share price, you've got to think alot of employees are going to go stampeding to the exits rather than holding > record short interest by the street This is double counting the same thing. The reason there's short interest is because there's a bunch of employees that would like to sell now but cannot. I suspect that much of these short positions will close out when the lock-up ends and employees sell into the market. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't back-channel deals along the lines of "you short it now and close when my lockup period ends, and I'll use my locked-up long position to unofficially hedge for you".

module0000 9y ago
Unofficial(as in, one entity hedging for a separate entity) hedging is 1) illegal and 2) very inefficient and prone to screw you at tax time. But realistically... you know non-wealthy stockholders(ie employees) want to cash in, so you buy into the retail sell-off on lockup day, bid it up 3 points, then close when you see the other retail buyers chasing the rally. Closing several thousand long shares should be sufficient to run their stops, depress the price, and present you with another buying opportunity at or near your original entry price. All that said.. guessing what will happen with the market is how you lose your money, and fail at day trading before you ever got started.
- alasdair_ 9y ago
  If, say, a person owns $5MM of snapchat stock and their spouse knows this, can their spouse (acting rationally) not simply short or buy a put option for some portion of this? They didn't agree to anything in the RSU agreement and no long as the spouse wasn't acting on insider information and simply wanted to hedge, I'm not certain a crime would have been committed, unless the person owning the shares actually asked their spouse to perform this action.
  - module0000 9y ago
    On paper: yes, that sounds good. BUT, if the SEC comes knocking...they operate in a way that looks like "guilty until proven innocent", and having your spouse do it appears at first glance as guilty. The RSU agreement would be important to see though, they may have some bits about spouses and immediate family - or they may not(in which case what you described is 100% above board). If anyone holding RSU's is (legally) able to show the RSU agreement, it would be insightful to read.
whatok 9y ago
I don't know what their RSU agreement is like but typically you are not able to short your own stock.
- 9y ago

nihonde 9y ago

Also, no foothold and lots of strong incumbents in Asia, so no growth opportunities there.