Snap, Inc. (SNAP -0.18%) finally became a busted IPO last week, and now it seems like it's in a race to the bottom. Shares of Snapchat's parent company fell in 10 of 12 trading days before bouncing back slightly on Wednesday, but that $17 debutante price seems so far away at the moment.
MoffettNathanson analyst Michael Nathanson feels that we still haven't hit bottom, reiterating his bearish sell rating on Wednesday. He's one of many Wall Street pros that have pointed to the July 30 lock-up expiration that will free many pre-IPO shares to be sold in the open market as problematic. Nathanson is also disheartened to see Snap blaming seasonality for its recent growth challenges. He feels that the lock-up expiration and decelerating growth can push the stock down to his target of $11, implying another 27% of downside even after the recent slide.
Image source: Snap, Inc.
Snap until it breaks
It may seem odd to see Snap's slide coming just as the world's most valuable consumer tech company is working on what is now a nine-day winning streak, but that just goes to show how a tech bellwether's good fortune can't save a broken IPO. The market's trying to wipe itself clean of Snap's early March offering, and even its largest lead underwriter has cooled on the stock this month.
The news wasn't all bad on Wednesday, likely explaining why the stock moved higher -- rare trading day victory for Snap stock -- despite the bearish analyst note out of MoffettNathanson earlier in the day.
Reuters reported that Comcast's (CMCSA 0.82%) NBC News is rolling out a news show on Snapchat that will push out fresh updates twice a day. The brief segments will last no more than three to four minutes, clearly trying to appeal to the short attention spans of Snapchat users who are used to their media blasts coming in short spurts.
The news makes sense. Comcast invested $500 million in Snap's IPO, trying to stay close to millennials who are shying away from most traditional ad-based TV offerings.
Another interesting development on Wednesday -- reported initially by Recode -- is that Amazon.com (AMZN 1.49%) is now offering Snap's Spectacles. The sunglasses with cameras that can record clips as long as 30 seconds haven't been material contributors to Snap's financials, but Spectacles is an important product for a company that's trying to differentiate its platform through an aggressively priced hardware product, something that Amazon investors can appreciate given how Amazon has taken a similar approach with most of its hardware offerings.
Snap's stock is clearly in a funk. The short-lived dot-com darling has seen its shares lose more than half of their value since peaking the day Snap went public. With support at its $17 IPO price seemingly gone and a poorly received first quarterly report as a public company, there's a lot to prove for a company as it approaches the lock-up expiration and its second-quarter report later this summer.
