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TechCrunch published Snap earnings before numbers went public
- tempsy 7y agoAny lawyers speak to why it would even be legal to give journalists earnings numbers before they were public, even if they were under embargo?
- minimaxir 7y agoThere is debate on how often companies provide raw earnings ahead of time: https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/1186741657351413761 https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/1186741657351413761
- tempsy 7y agoSeems silly for the SEC to allow that. A media embargo isn’t something legally binding...it’s more like a gentleman’s handshake AFAIK
- hbcondo714 7y ago"Companies can use social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to announce key information" but Investors must be alerted[1]. TechCrunch may not qualify under this. [1] https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2013-2013-51htm https://www.sec.gov/news/press-release/2013-2013-51htm
- nl 7y agoIt applies to websites too: The SEC’s report of investigation confirms that Regulation FD applies to social media and other emerging means of communication used by public companies the same way it applies to company websites. The SEC issued guidance in 2008 clarifying that websites can serve as an effective means for disseminating information to investors if they’ve been made aware that’s where to look for it. (in the same document)
- qeternity 7y agoIf there’s an accompanying NDA then it is legally binding. Same thing happens with the Fed, EIA, USDA, BLS, etc
- tempsy 7y agoI don’t think that’s how media embargos work, meaning no signed NDAs. It’s usually just a journalist telling a company rep a verbal “yes I agree to the embargo”.
- dannyw 7y agoVerbal agreements are very much legally binding, especially if it is in writing (e.g. over email).
- insulfrable 7y agoDid you seriously write this?
- nothal 7y agoThis doesn't contribute to conversation at all and seems to be implying something that's incorrect. Verbal agreement (e.g. even telling someone out loud "I agree to do this for you for $10") is a form of legal contract. Enforceability/provability is a different story but legally that's a contract.
- badfrog 7y ago> seems to be implying something that's incorrect I think they were referring to the contradiction of "verbal agreement... especially if it's in writing." But yeah, the snarky comment does not help anybody with anything.
- dmurray 7y agoAn agreement in writing is usually a verbal agreement, so it's not even wrong. Perhaps someone meant to contrast an oral agreement with a written one.
- vkou 7y agoWhy is it legal for your accountants to know the numbers, before they go public? Consider the journalists publishing the information as an extension of the accounting department. Specifically, they are the part of the extended department that announces the numbers. And yes, the SEC loves to prosecute people for suspiciously shorting stocks, right before earnings release.
- onetimemanytime 7y ago>>Consider the journalists publishing the information as an extension of the accounting department. Well, they are not. And accountants can face penalties from lawsuits, losing their license, to jail for revealing client info, unless directed to.
- vkou 7y agoJournalists trading on insider information can go to jail just as easily as accountants.
- badfrog 7y agoWhy wouldn't it be legal?
- umanwizard 7y agoWhy wouldn’t it be legal?
- minimaxir 7y agoThis apparently resulted in a very distinct blip in $SNAP: https://twitter.com/TheStalwart/status/1186740313081159680 https://twitter.com/TheStalwart/status/1186740313081159680
- nodesocket 7y agoNot necessarily, in after hours waiting for earnings can be extremely volatile but generally it's very low volume so not important.
- semiotagonal 7y agoIt's funny to see someone sell all the way down from $14 to $12 regardless of the volume. Whoever had that bid in at $12 must be laughing their ass off.
- gamblor956 7y agoCue the SEC insider trading investigation in 3...2...1... It's fine to release numbers online, through generally available media like Twitter or Facebook. Techcrunch doesn't cut it. That means at least one person (i.e., at Techcrunch) got the information before the rest of the public (meaning anyone not at Snap).
- qeternity 7y agoThere is nothing wrong with this. Plenty of people have the info before it’s released (under NDA/embargo). Being one of these people AND trading on it before it’s released is a different story.
- tempsy 7y agoOk, so TechCrunch violated whatever agreement they had with Snap. What is the consequence?
- gamblor956 7y agoNothing, for TC. For Snap? A fine and a binding agreement not to do this again or else to designate TC as one of their preferred methods of disclosing financial information (like Elon's twitter is for Tesla). Shareholders on the wrong sides of trades today can also sue Snap and have a good chance of recovering any putative losses. This is actually the bigger concern for Snap since this is likely a much bigger amount than any potential SEC fine.
- paxys 7y agoI wouldn't say nothing for TC. Breaching embargoes is a very big deal in journalism and incidents like this greatly affect a publication's reputation. They are definitely not getting any such briefings for a while now.
- gamblor956 7y agoAgreed, but I was only looking at it from a legal perspective.
- npollock 7y agoDAU up 13% year over year to 210M. I thought Instagram Stories had flattened Snap's growth. Does anyone know if the growth is a result of changes to the product?
- zjaffee 7y agoThey did redo the android app sometime earlier in the year, it's very likely that is playing a factor.
- raiyu 7y agoOver 80% of the new acquired users are international, not the in the US, where the percentage of Android is much higher. So it's definitely having an impact. The downside for most social networks is that the revenue generated from non-US users is much lower than US.
- iamaelephant 7y agoOh $SNAP
- filmgirlcw 7y agoWhatever investor relations person authorized this — embargo or not — almost certainly just got fired.
- kovek 7y agoWhat is a use case for TechCrunch to have these numbers before they are published by the SEC?
- advisedwang 7y agoMake a deal with a reporter for early info in exchange for favourable coverage?
- kovek 7y agoBut that would be insider trading right?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Spivak 7y agoIs it insider trading is if you don’t do anything with the information?
- ga-vu 7y agoNo. Newswire services receive these kind of press releases in advance all the time. As long as you don't use or share them, you're fine.
- bdowling 7y agoNo, it’s not. Someone must make a trade based on non-public info for there to be insider trading.
- kovek 7y agoAlright, then I guess I’ll get into reporting, develop relationships with public companies, get some of these numbers and maybe spill them very carefully to who knows who? There’s always telegram or other for me to share it carefully. No one can find out.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- gojomo 7y agoA new business model for supporting online journalism emerges!
- not_a_cop75 7y agoInsider trading.
- vuln 7y agoBut but but ad revenue.
- lnanek2 7y agoHmm, the time on the Twitter post says 1:07PM. The earnings call was 2PM. But I've noticed the Snap investor site always has the presentation put up a bit before the call, like an hour or so. I've read the presentation before the call started plenty of times. Maybe TC just had a prewritten article ready to go, waiting for the presentation, and plugged in the numbers?
- Thorrez 7y agoThe tweet says: >Yep, TC had the numbers early and published almost 10 min before numbers actually hit the wires. It appears the official announcement was supposed to be at 4:10pm EDT[1]. The tweet was at 4:07pm EDT. It's likely the tweet was posted several minutes after the TechCrunch article. So that lines up with the TechCrunch article being ~10 minutes early. The author of the TechCrunch article tweeted it at 4:32pm EDT[2]. There is an archive.org snapshot from 4:02pm EDT in which it has a 404[3]. I'm guessing that snapshot was after it had been taken down, and before it had been put back up. Because if it was before it was ever posted, it raises the question of how did archive.org know which URL to snapshot? [1] https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191022006082/en/ https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191022006082/en/ [2] https://twitter.com/JoshConstine/status/1186742106175393792 https://twitter.com/JoshConstine/status/1186742106175393792 [3] https://web.archive.org/web/20191022200231/https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/22/snapchat-earnings-q3-2019/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191022200231/https://techcrunc...
- stevespang 7y agoI can see the SEC investigating this . . .
- ksec 7y agoDoes anyone know if this is standard practice worldwide? Or is it US only? How on earth do these numbers be handed to reporters before hand? It isn't about having NDA or not, It shouldn't even be allowed in the first place. This is going to be controversial opinion. I could trust lawyers, and Accounts to be professional, but Journalist? So we could give the results to anyone who wants it early as longs as they sign a NDA and dont trade with the information?
- manigandham 7y agoPublic companies are full of employees that know insider information. An upcoming roadmap by the newest hire can be enough to predict news. Sensitive data isn't a problem. There are plenty of rules and processes with NDAs, especially in news publishing which often have scheduled stories under embargo. Also the companies are dealing with the news organizations who would vet and assign the proper journalist. I doubt you would get this info by claiming to be an indie blogger.
- cbhl 7y agoI wonder how much of this was just somebody fat-fingering a "Publish Now" button instead of a "Save Draft for the scheduled publish later" button. (And then getting fired over it.) I'm reminded of the hawaii nuclear alert ui, and I know I've built my fair share of not-great-to-use quickly-coded admin UIs over the years.
- swarnie_ 7y agoI don't think the issue is the fact it was published early, i think it's more to do with having the numbers early. As i'm sure you know reporting restrictions are heavily regulated, a random tech editor shouldn't have this data before investors.
- theboywho 7y agoThe numbers are positive, so if anything, this is an elaborate marketing campaign.
- buboard 7y agoI find the fact that it s 2019 and accounting is still stuck on this parade of "quarterly" numbers baffling, especially for tech companies. And on top of this, investors will pretend they couldn't have known until the "sorcerers" release their "secret". It's like fukin middle earth . The one (1) guy who runs nomad list all by himself, reports his earnings daily. Surely it can't be THAT hard https://nomadlist.com/open https://nomadlist.com/open