Things have gotten so bad for Snap since its IPO that investors and analysts have begun looking for historic comparisons to get some perspective on the company’s fall from grace.
Consider this fun headline from Barron’s earlier this week: “How Snap’s Post-IPO Flop Compares to Other Tech Giants.” That is the stuff of PR nightmares.
The chart with the story asks how long it took various other mega-tech companies to fall below their offering price. Facebook led the pack with two days, though that’s not a great comparison. For one thing, Facebook didn’t get a first-day pop because it priced its IPO offering at the high end of its range. And second, well, Facebook is currently trading at more than four times its IPO price.
Snap tumbled below its $17 offering price this week. And it closed at $15.24 on Wednesday. That put it at 90 days to break through the offering floor.
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At third place on that list: Fitbit, at 143 days. And Fitbit is not really a fun comparison because it has turned into a slow-motion train wreck.
Of course, some are hoping for a Facebook-like revival. But at the moment, Snap, with its $18 billion valuation, finds itself slumping toward Twitter’s $13 billion valuation.
Analysts are not hopeful. It’s notable that both Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley — the latter of which was one of the banks that worked on the Snap IPO — both downgraded the stock this week. Morgan Stanley, which is probably wondering about its legal liability in all of this, lowered its price target from $28 to $16 a share.
Yowch.
Snap could be facing even more pressure in the near future. The lock-up period for insiders to sell stock expires at the end of the July. And TheStreet.com reported that the FTSE Russell might change its rules to exclude from its various indices companies that don’t give voting rights to shareholders. That may sound technical, but Snap is one such company. Many fund managers often buy stocks by investing in an entire index. If Snap is knocked out, it would be dumped from fund managers’ portfolios.
Snap will announce its second quarter earnings on August 10. While the company has been using its treasure chest to make a couple of acquisitions this year, analysts will likely be looking for a better explanation of how it is going to beat back the growing threat from Facebook.
While Snap has said it can afford to be patient and think long term, investors’ faith is being tested. If they don’t get some reason for hope next month, Snap’s stock price may have a long way to go before it touches bottom.
