Social media stocks have taken a beating

1. $Meta Platforms (FB.US)$ Meta Platforms' 26% drop in a single day caught the attention of investors. But I realised Meta was not the only social media stock that got hit badly.

2. $Roblox (RBLX.US)$ Roblox, a favourite among the school goers today, dropped 26% in a day too. Seems like 26% is a magic number. The reasons given were that it missed the revenue by $2m and that the earnings have slowed down. Investors fear the allure of the platform has declined due to the reopening of the economy.

3. Of course, not all is doom and gloom. The overall results were still pretty good. Roblox's revenue increased 108% in 2021 and free cash flow was positive and increased to half a billion. This means that they no longer need to raise money as their operations are able to sustain the business on its own.

4. Similarly, $Snap Inc (SNAP.US)$ Snap has reported positive free cash flow that is 3x the amount achieved in the last quarter. This is the first time they have a consecutive positive free cash flow quarters. Similar to Roblox, they are self-sustainable now. Snap has turned profitable in the latest quarter too.

5. Although Snap share price jumped 58% on this good news, it is still down 15% since the start of 2022. This is worse than the NASDAQ Composite (-13%).

6. Somehow the general sentiment towards social media stocks was bad, looking at the comparative performances:
NASDAQ -13%
Snap -15%
Twitter -17%
Pinterest -32%
Meta Platforms -39%
Roblox -45%

7. $Twitter (Delisted) (TWTR.US)$ Twitter and $Pinterest (PINS.US)$ Pinterest grew their revenue by 37% and 52% respectively. Twitter is still loss-making and having negative free cash flow but Pinterest is the direct opposite. Even so, Pinterest share price has declined 32% since the start of 2022.

8. Overall, the social media platforms have exhibited good growth and majority of them have achieved a significant milestone: generating positive free cash flow and some turned profitable.

9. All these were ignored. I think there are three reasons. First, the valuation reset due to pending higher interest rates - many growth stocks should trade lower as their future value will be discounted by a larger amount to the present day.

10. Second, the increase in social media competition would mean a smaller pie for everybody. Investors project slower growth and bigger losses as they spend more to compete.

11. Third, the degree of privacy protection may be enhanced going forward (Android is increasing privacy options too) and this trend will impact the social media platforms because they all rely on tracking to make ads more effective.

12. It is definitely harder to analyse the social media platforms now. It has evolved from a monopoly to an oligopoly. This alone will make the industry less attractive according to Porter's Five Forces.

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