Twitter's recent IPO was largely successful, but it remains to be seen whether the company can maintain its stock price gains and post a profit in the coming months
(OPENPRESS) Twitter, Inc. (TWTR), founded in 2006, is the most popular micro-blogging social media platform in the world. It has more than 215 million active users who post around 500 million tweets per day. The company had its IPO (initial public offering) on November 6, with an IPO price of $26. Currently it has a market cap of $19 billion and it raised a total of $1.8 billion, making the IPO one of the biggest among internet companies in the US, second only to that of Facebook, Inc. (FB).
While some analysts were skeptical of Twitter's share price performance, based on Facebook's IPO performance, Twitter's stock price jumped 73% by the end of the first day. Despite the fact that the company is operating at a loss and has negative operating margins, investors have high expectations from the company.
Competitor IPOs
Historically, the stock price of social media companies has mostly surged on first day trading, with Facebook shares being the notable exception. However, both LinkedIn Corporation (LNKD) and Facebook's stock price fell in the six months following their respective IPOs. Based on this trend, some analysts expect Twitter's stock price to fall in a few months also.
Twitter's Financial Performance
Twitter revenues in fiscal year (FY) 2012 were $317 million but net losses were $79 million. The company's performance has improved, reflected in a revenue growth of 200% in FY12 and a 38% fall in net losses.
Despite the negative profits, investors are expecting growth in the future. The company's revenue growth hinges upon its ability to monetize its growing user base; 75% of its monthly active users accessed the website from mobile devices, and generate 65% of total advertisement revenue.
The company's value per user (market capitalization divided by total number of users) is below that of Facebook and LinkedIn using November 11 market capitalization figures. Monthly active users (MAUs), meanwhile, increased 44% compared to June 30, 2012, and the company expects to grow to 400 million MAUs by the end of this year.
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Exxon Earnings Beat Street Estimates
Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM) more than made up for the disappointing results in the previous quarter when it beat estimates and announced $112.4 billion in revenues for 3QFY13. This was a significant turnaround for the company which had recently announced its worst ever results since 2010.
Earnings from its Upstream segment noticeably improved on both a year-over-year (YoY) and quarter-over-quarter (QoQ) basis. The segment performed better because global oil pricing benchmarks like the price of Brent crude oil increased during 3QFY12. Exxon is also increasing its exposure in liquid production to capitalize on high crude oil prices and upstream volumes also increased 1.5% YoY.
The decline in refining and marketing margins is a cause for concern and hit earnings but the possible impact was partially offset by an increase in volumes in 3QFY13. The Dartmouth refinery, which is being converted into a marine terminal, remained functional over the quarter, which also contributed to the higher refining volumes.
Exxon's Chemicals business was the highest growing segment in the previous year. Margins as well as volumes have improved compared to the previous quarter and the previous year's same quarter.
Management also stated that in its earnings call that capex for FY13 was in accordance with guidance. The company's cash balance over the quarter rose by $700 million to $5.7 billion. This indicates Exxon's ability to keep on paying dividends and also continue its share buyback program. Dividend paid out by Exxon this quarter was $2.8 billion and the company also bought back 34 million shares worth $3 billion.
