Twitter’s long-awaited IPO is here and earnings season is upon us and it’s already been a doozy with wild action in many of our stocks including Facebook, Microsoft and Apple, even though we’re barely halfway through the reports.
Let’s hit on the Twitter IPO and whether or not you should be buying the stock after it comes public later this week.
Twitter $TWTR – If I had a dime for every email and text and conversation that includes “Should I buy Twitter?” I’d hold an IPO of my own. First off, I’d say if you can get the $TWTR stock before the IPO and/or under $25 a share, I do think it’s a buy. I think it’s being foolishly underpriced by its bankers and executives and that the stock is likely to trade at least over $35-40 a share when it finally does hit the market later this week, and I wouldn’t want to be aggressive in buying much if any at those prices early on. I do think $TWTR will be worth at least as much as LinkedIn $LNKD by the time the dust settles over the next couple weeks, which would put the stock up north of $50, but as with any IPO and especially an IPO of an unprofitable company like Twitter, I’d be very careful about chasing it on a big pop.
Now let’s run through some recent reports and update our Revolution Investing analysis.
Facebook $FB – Great quarter with growth in every segment and every region of business. Mobile and rich-media ads are what the Street is focused on, but the easy-to-use ad-buying platform, which lets you promote your posts, is really a big revenue and earnings enhancement for the long-term. I have been actively using the new ad-buying platforms to promote my Scutify.com site and apps using the new “Promote your post” on both Facebook and Twitter. Both ad platforms have been very good on return on investment but Facebook’s is even easier to use than Twitter for now.
Apple $AAPL – Here’s a company that’s past its topline-growth-prime and is increasingly under pressure to figure out how to generate more margins and more earnings per dollar of sales. The quarterly report gave Wall Street and investors what they wanted and the stock will now likely trade based on iPhone 5S and iPad sales into the holiday season, with the stock price tracking their popularity. The stock is still far off its all-time highs but is up big from recent lows, and I’m holding it steady as is here. I got my iPhone 5S in last week and while I do like it a lot — especially the seemingly much-extended battery life over the iPhone 5 — it’s just another evolutionary step in the Smartphone Revolution and I’d sure like to see something more radical out of Apple soon in the new year.
First Solar $FSLR – As I wrote on Friday, “Back late last year, I “Flipped It” and went from short Solar Stocks like $AONEQ to Long Solar Stocks and I bought $FSLR . I am sticking with $FSLR and the report tonight wasn’t half bad. Consolidation and bankruptcy of competitors is definitely a continued positive for $FSLR and other solar stocks. Of the major solar stocks, I am only long First Solar.” Well, the stock is up another $5 since we published that, and it’s getting to be a bit bigger than I want it to be, so I’m trimming down about 1/4 of my $FSLR position today.
Microsoft – $MSFT – The quarter wasn’t a disaster and that was enough in this bubble-blowing bull market to get the stock moving up. If it breaks above $36 on a technical analysis level, it could run to $40. I still own my stupid $MSFT calls that I stupidly bought after the news of CEO Steve Ballmer exiting the company, and I’m not down too bad on them any more. But I still feel stupid and wasted time, money and energy on this trade. Will let it ride out since, as I’ve noted repeatedly, it was a small trade and one I gave myself a little bit of time on.