Twitter (TWTR) Stock Slumps, RBC Capital Cautious
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Twitter (TWTR) - Get Report shares are tumbling 4.03% to $27.14 on Monday as RBC Capital Markets cautions investors about the company's future, saying that it may take awhile for the microblogging site to turn around.
Due to its slow long-term growth prospects, shareholders may want to avoid buying Twitter shares for the foreseeable future, RBC Capital Markets managing director Mark Mahaney stated, according to CNBC.com.
The firm added that Twitter should improve its user interface.
Overall, Mahaney favors social networking site LinkedIn (LNKD) over Twitter due to its high profitability and growing levels of user engagement.
So far, LinkedIn has over 400 million users and its user base could nearly double in the next five years, Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter noted.
Separately, TheStreet Ratings team rates TWITTER INC as a Sell with a ratings score of D. TheStreet Ratings Team has this to say about their recommendation:
We rate TWITTER INC (TWTR) a SELL. This is driven by some concerns, which we believe should have a greater impact than any strengths, and could make it more difficult for investors to achieve positive results compared to most of the stocks we cover. Among the areas we feel are negative, one of the most important has been a generally disappointing historical performance in the stock itself.
Highlights from the analysis by TheStreet Ratings Team goes as follows:
- TWTR's stock share price has done very poorly compared to where it was a year ago: Despite any rallies, the net result is that it is down by 29.01%, which is also worse that the performance of the S&P 500 Index. Investors have so far failed to pay much attention to the earnings improvements the company has managed to achieve over the last quarter. Naturally, the overall market trend is bound to be a significant factor. However, in one sense, the stock's sharp decline last year is a positive for future investors, making it cheaper (in proportion to its earnings over the past year) than most other stocks in its industry. But due to other concerns, we feel the stock is still not a good buy right now.
- The company, on the basis of net income growth from the same quarter one year ago, has significantly underperformed compared to the Internet Software & Services industry average, but is greater than that of the S&P 500. The net income increased by 24.9% when compared to the same quarter one year prior, going from -$175.46 million to -$131.69 million.
- The company's current return on equity greatly increased when compared to its ROE from the same quarter one year prior. This is a signal of significant strength within the corporation. Compared to other companies in the Internet Software & Services industry and the overall market, TWITTER INC's return on equity significantly trails that of both the industry average and the S&P 500.
- The gross profit margin for TWITTER INC is currently very high, coming in at 78.28%. Regardless of TWTR's high profit margin, it has managed to decrease from the same period last year. Despite the mixed results of the gross profit margin, TWTR's net profit margin of -23.13% significantly underperformed when compared to the industry average.
- Despite currently having a low debt-to-equity ratio of 0.37, it is higher than that of the industry average, inferring that management of debt levels may need to be evaluated further. Even though the debt-to-equity ratio shows mixed results, the company's quick ratio of 9.41 is very high and demonstrates very strong liquidity.
- You can view the full analysis from the report here: TWTR