What happened
Shares of Pinterest (PINS 0.43%) were under pressure this week along with the rest of the market to end the worst first half of a year for stocks in over 50 years. For the sake of keeping score, the social media stock was down 13% on the week, the S&P 500 was down 2.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite was down 3.6%.
During the first half of 2022, Pinterest has lost 50% of its value. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite have fallen 21% and 27%, respectively, as investors mull a slowing economy and risk of recession, inflation, and a U.S. Federal Reserve that is aggressively hiking interest rates to try to tame commodity price inflation.
So what
Pinterest did give shareholders a head-fake in the past week. The company announced that co-founder and CEO Ben Silbermann is stepping down as chief and becoming executive chairman. A fresh perspective is being brought in with the hire of Bill Ready as the new CEO.
The stock briefly jumped when the news broke on Tuesday afternoon, but resumed its slide anyway after the market had some time to mull it over.
Now what
The good news is that Pinterest shares likely didn't tumble because of Ready taking over as chief executive. Pinterest and other high-growth stocks are simply out of favor at the moment given economic conditions. Even mighty social media maven Meta Platforms (err, Facebook) is planning on thinning out its workforce as it braces for potentially tough times.
Ready actually looks like a good long-term fit for Pinterest as the struggling early pandemic winner looks to re-engage users via new e-commerce features. Ready was the former president of commerce, payments and next billion users at Alphabet's Google, as well as a former exec at PayPal.
The new CEO arrangement was effective June 29, but expect this story to unfold over the next year or two as Ready implements whatever plans he has in store for the social media business.
