The Social Media Hangover After Twitter IPO

November 8, 2013 by Jon C. Ogg

social media networkTwitter Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) managed to stun the markets on Thursday with a solid initial public offering (IPO), and the reaction so far on Friday feels a bit like an IPO hangover. The Twitter IPO put a secondary and tertiary value and potential trading event on other aspects of social media stocks.

For starters, we had several analysts get very bullish even before the IPO. Then we had a downgrade on the first day, and investors realized that all the bullish upside targets were actually under where the IPO opened: $45.10. Keep in mind that Twitter is valued at more than 50 times sales now, something almost unheard of over the past decade.

24/7 Wall St. is evaluating where other secondary and tertiary companies are trading, with a comparison if applicable.

Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) sold off but was up 1.5% at $48.25 Friday morning. The social media giant has a market value of $117 billion. At that rate, it is valued at 58 times expected 2013 earnings and 43 times expected 2014 earnings. Again, earnings rather than sales like Twitter. Facebook is valued at 15 times expected 2013 sales and only about 11 times expected 2014 sales.

LinkedIn Corp. (NYSE: LNKD) sold off on Thursday and recovered marginally on Friday. Trading at about $214, its market cap is $25.6 billion. The professional social media network trades at 134 times expected 2013 earnings and about 97 times expected 2014 earnings. LinkedIn trades at almost 17 times expected 2013 sales and at almost 12 times expected 2014 sales.

Amazingly enough, the Global X Social Media Index ETF (NYSEMKT: SOCL) was up marginally in late-morning trading on Friday. The last trade was up four cents at $18.81, after having been negative this morning.

The closed-end companies like GSV Capital Corp. (NASDAQ: GSVC) and Firsthand Technology Value Fund (NASDAQ: SVVC) were actually managing to bounce.

  • GSV Capital was up 4.7% at $14.07, after closing down sharply on Thursday at $13.44. Keep in mind that this fund was above $15.00 just on Thursday.
  • The Firsthand Technology Value Fund was up about 1.8% to $22.70 in early Friday trading. This fund was at $25 on November 5.

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