With Snap's first earnings report coming, Facebook and Twitter provide a cautionary tale

Jonathan Garber

May 11, 2017, 3:47 AM

Snap’s first quarterly results as a publicly traded company are due out after Wednesday’s closing bell.
Some traders seem to be expecting a repeat of Facebook and Twitter’s first report. Both of those social media companies missed Wall Street expectations by a wide margin.
With the report approaching, short interest in Snap has climbed by more than $US100 million in the last week alone, and as of Tuesday sat at $US946 million, according to financial analytics firm S3 Partners.

Wall Street analysts are expecting Snap to post an adjusted loss of $US0.16 per share on revenue of $US158.55 million. Snap’s initial public offering priced at $US17 a share, and the stock hit an all-time high of $US27.09 just two days later.

Ahead of the results, Snap is trading down 1.3% near $US23.

Back in the second quarter of 2012, Facebook announced an adjusted loss of $US0.08 a share versus the Wall Street estimate of a $US0.12 gain. Its shares tumbled nearly 12% the day following the earnings release.

Things were much worse for Twitter. The company announced an adjusted loss of $US1.43 a share, missing the Wall Street consensus of a $US0.02 by a huge margin, in its first quarterly report as a publicly traded company. The stock crashed more than 24% in the trading day after the report.