Tag Archives: Facebook

Go Daddy IPO

What a jump for tech stocks yesterday! Facebook up +7,25%. LinkedIn +4,19%. Yelp +5,95%. Yahoo +3,07%. Even Twitter was up yesterday; +1,70%. That`s just a few of them. Many investors saw a huge opportunity and jumped into the market yesterday.

The market was very quiet yesterday, but that was before the release of the Fed Meeting Minutes. Right after the release, we saw a nice move in the markets. This time investors was bullish and most of the tech stocks skyrocketed.

With the rally yesterday, we can see a new bullish trend in the chart, but it is a little bit too early to say that 100% right now. It’s just early in the stage of the new bullish trend. Equities rallied, but Treasuries declined after the minutes eased concern about the timing of future interest-rate increases.

They probably might have to keep the rates at levels below normal for longer because of tighter credit and a slow growth. In addition there will be higher savings. Fed have always said that they will keep the rate low as long as the unemployment rate exceeds 6,5%.

Fed also said that the benchmark interest rate would rise faster than previously forecast. Only the new data that comes in will tell them what to consider when to increase borrowing costs. Bad data coming in later will destroy their plans and vica verse.

Go Daddy

The leading domain name registrar Go Daddy has hired JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley to handle an IPO that could occur later in 2014. They provide individuals and businesses with internet services, such as domain name registration and website hosting.

They also have software for functions that include e-mail, e-commerce, podcasting and website creation. Go Daddy boosts some 57 million domain names under management. They targets niche markets the likes of priate domains and reseller programs through affiliates Domains By Proxy and Wild West Domains.

Founder Bob Parsons remains its majority shareholder, while both KKR and Silver Lake have been partners in Go Daddy since 2011. Go Daddy was acquired by KKR, Silver Lake, and VC firm TCV for $2,25B.

Their rival Wix went public last year and soared +7,82% yesterday. Verisign jumped only +1,2%. Wix has a 52 week low of $16,19 and a 52 week high of $32,69. The stock`s 50-day moving average is $26,28. 200-day MA is $25,12. Market cap is $831,7 million.

I personally use Go Daddy and I like their competitive prices and their service. I will look for the IPO and I will wait for Alibaba to come to the exchange later on this year too. That`s gonna be two new stocks for the tech sector in the future.

Reports today:

08:30 a.m EST Unemployment Claims
08:30 a.m EST Import prices m/m
08:30 a.m EST G20 Meetings
08:30 a.m EST G7 Meetings
02:00 p.m EST Federal Budget Balance (Previous: -193,5B Forecast: -76,5B)

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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Chat battle

 

China`s largest listed internet company Tencent posted its slowest quarterly profit growth in two years. They have spent a lot of money to promote its mobile messaging app called WeChat and other e-commerce sites in competition with Alibaba Group. Marketing expenses is up 39% from the third quarter.

WeChat

Tencent is a third owned by South African e-commerce and media company Naspers and they plan a 5 for 1 split share on the company. This will take place from May 15. Tencent`s share price has more than doubled in the past years and their market cap is $138,7 billion.

Tencent gave an indication of WeChat revenue figures for the first time as it transforms from a massaging service to fully fledged mobile platform. WeChat is more than a chat platform. It`s everything from social networking and gaming to personal finance and booking taxis.

WeChat Q4 revenues is between 200-300 mln yuan ($32 – 49 million). Tencent`s President Martin Lau said last week that the WeChat and Mobile QQ together generated gaming sales of more than 600 million yuan in three months to Dec 31. The groups revenue is 16,97 billion yuan in total revenue for the quarter.

Line Corp from Japan is another competitor and they announced 2013 revenues of 34,3 billion yen ($338,38 million), making it last year`s top-earning non-gaming smart phone app. WeChat is worth about $64 billion.

The multiple uses of this app called WeChat offer far greater earnings potential than Facebook`s WhatsApp, which is «worth» $19 billion. 70% of the WeChat`s revenue comes from gaming and subscriptions and online ad sales rose 58% to RMB 1,5B. E-commerce transaction revenue nearly doubled to RMB 3,3B.

Tencent is fighting against the e-commerce giant Alibaba in mobile-based retail services and both groups recently announced plans to launch virtual credit cards using QR codes that function in a similar way to bar codes scanned by smartphones to process payments.

Those two groups has attacked China`s traditional banking sector and the central bank is considering regulations to limit the use of third-party payment systems offered by Tencent and Alibaba Group.

Tencent`s mobile massaging platform is dominant in China (totaled 355M, +6% Q/Q and 12% Y/Y. ). globally MAU`s for WeChat rose 5,7% in the fourth quarter to 355 million with a net income of 3,91 billion yuan ($631M) on revenues. Up 40% at 16,97 billion yuan ($2,74B).

WeChat`s MAU is nearly 3 times that of Sina`s Weibo, and 24% smaller than WhatsApp`s 465M (as of February). MAU`s for Qzone social networking platform rose 4% Y/Y to 625M. Instant messaging MAU`s rose only 1% to 808M.

A month after Facebook spent $19B on WhatsApp, Alibaba (ABABA) is investing $215M into messaging/VoIP app Tango at a $1,1B valuation. Tango and BBM are close to each other in scale. WhatsApp claims a market-leading MAU of 465M. Tango claims 70M.

BlackBerry`s John Sims disclosed BBM`s base had grown to 85M MAU`s since the launch last fall. The Tango deal is only one of many investments made by Alibaba which is trying to grow their Web/mobile empire.

To compare: Renren (RENN) is declining and is headed for a fall of 40 – 45% drop. Online game revenue fell 39,6% in Q4 to $15,6M after dropping 17% in Q3. Ad revenue pressured by share losses to social media rivals such as Tencent and Sina, fell 17,9% to $10,2M after falling 11% in Q3. Monthly unique logins fell to 45M in December from 50M in September.

Sina surges on Weibo IPO news and Alibaba is spending $805M to buy a 60% stake in ChinaVision Media. A Hong Kong based producer of films and TV dramas. Youku (YOKU) remains the market`s biggest player on the fragmented online/mobile video market.

Strong competition is provided by Baidu, Sohu and Tencent. Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent have been constantly finding ways to encroach on each others turf. Tencent bought a 15% stake in #2 Chinese e-commerce firm JD.com. What a battle!

Yelp has been a hot stock and some investors say these stocks are «momentum monsters», and now you have the chance to get into a new IPO of the Facebooks game developer called Candy Crush. Wall Street is planning on selling 22 million shares. A valuation of $7,6 billion! Candy Crush made $159 million in 2013! Wow!

Reports today:

09:00 AM ET S&P/CS Composite 20 HPI y/y
10:00 AM ET CB Consumer Confidence
10:00 AM ET New Home Sales
07:00 PM ET FOMC Member Plosser Speaks

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

 

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Twitter 8 year

A big jump for Copper today which is up +1,33% to 296,75. Gold, Silver and Oil is also up today. A great jump for the U.S stocks yesterday too. S&P 500 is now trading at 1,872,01. Up +0,60%. Nasdaq traded up +0,27% yesterday but not all the tech companies went up yesterday.

twitter_newbird_boxed_blueonwhite-11

First of all: congratulations to Twitter which is 8 years old today. Can you belive that? I hope it will be a great day for Twitter on the stock exchange today. That will be a great gift, because yesterday was a bad day for Twitter. Down -2,19%.

Twitter is not alone: Facebook went down -1,86% and Apple went down -0,48%. What is that suppose to mean? It is a sale signal for Facebook. Is this the time for investors to get out of Facebook and other tech stocks? Time will show.

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service company that enables users to send and read «tweets». According to Yahoo.com, the microblogger went dark in Turkey just hours after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to «wipe out» Twitter which (along with others) was highlighting corruptions against his inner circle.

The EU commissioner for digital agenda, Neelie Kroes, tweeted that the block «is groundless, pointless, cowardly». Erdogan`s office said in a statement that Twitter had remained «indifferent» to Turkish court rulings demanding «some links» be removed.

Erdogan will wipe out Twitter and say he don`t care about the international community. Turkey`s leader since 2003 is under pressure since audio recording spread across social media that appeared to put him at the heart of a major corruption scandal.

Some of the most damaging information has come from a Twitter account under the name Haramzadeler («Sons of Thieves») which have access to a huge trove of secrets documents and policy wiretaps linked to the investigation. Erdogan say the recordings are fake and threatened to ban YouTube and Facebook after crucial elections on March 30.

Erdogan say this social media companies like Twitter «menace» for helping organise mass anti-government protests.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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Online traffic

Some people do not understand how WhatsApp can be worth $19 billion, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg say it is worth more than that. How is that possible? What do Mr Zuckerberg see that others don`t see?

Facebook whatsapp

The revenue in WhatsApp is $20 million (2013), which means Facebook has paid 950 times the revenue. This means that Facebook is paying $42 per WhatsApp user. The Facebook value per user is $170. Facebook’s revenue per user (ARPU) is $6,73, while WhatsApp generates $1 per user annually after one year free subscription.

 

This deal gives WhatsApp the same valuations as Gap Inc, and half of the value of Twitter Inc. Half-a-billion people are using WhatsApp for messaging and, and the engagement of the app is huge on mobile by far.

 

It seems like Facebook’s goal is to collect as much people as they can on a few mobile and tablet apps. As long as they have billions of people engaged in their apps, they will be attractive to marketers which is paying their wages.

 

WhatsApp have low revenues today, but Mr Zuckerberg say it would be worth more in the future. This is a strategic value. He saw a huge business potential to double its users and its fit with Facebook. In addition; Mr Zuckerberg are seeking more phone companies as partners to connect the people.

 

It sounds like Nokia`s vision: «connecting people». Nokia was the worlds nr.1 mobile company. As you already know, the wind changed, and you know the history of Steve Job`s fantastic company Apple. The world`s biggest company!

 

It`s difficult for some people to see why they should use WhatsApp. There are so many alternatives out there, and they have been there for many years. I personally do not use WhatsApp. I don`t know other people who use it either.

 

I spend many hours on skype every week. Everyone I know from China use skype and its free. WhatsApp is free only the first year, and then it cost $99 cent. Why should people around the world use WhatsApp and pay for it when others like Skype is for free?

 

The trend now is that the mobile operators don`t sell SMS or phone calls anymore. Its free! How do they earn money? They sell online traffic. That`s the new product. Come on Facebook. Come on Mark Zuckerberg; this is not innovation! But if everyone use WhatsApp in the future; I have no choice.

 

Reports today:

 

09:00 AM ET S&P Case Shiller HPI
10:00 AM ET Consumer Confidence

 

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Social Media Future

Robert Murdoch bought MySpace in 2005. One year later he incorporated it into Fox Interactive Media. It all peaked out in 2008, and MySpace was getting 76 million visitors a month. In 2009 they brought in about $470 million. This revenue came from advertising.

facebook logo

Suddenly, MySpace was not so cool anymore. The new #1 Social media choice was Facebook. MySpace lost 50% of the monthly visitors and revenues has plummeted to only $34 million. It can change very fast in this business.

 

People thought that MySpace was a website where spam and crime were rampant. MySpace was losing market shares and Facebook became the new winner. MySpace gave up its user experience and Facebook was better and more secure and clutter free with ads on the sidelines of the user experience.

 

Facebook celebrated its 10th birthday a few weeks ago, and I`m impressed of what Facebook has been doing so far despite all the negative critics from people who said the company is doomed. We have seen what have happened to others like MySpace. Is Facebook just a part of a social media evolution? The stock is now trading at $69,63%. Up +2,31% yesterday – after WhatsApp news.

 

Reports today:

 

10:00AM ET Existing Home Sales

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Shiny bull. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Shiny bull nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in precious metal products, commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Shiny bull and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

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