Don’t sleep on Twitter
Five years after its initial public offering, Twitter will join the S&P 500.
Twitter will replace Monsanto as the latest company in the S&P 500, a stock market listing of the largest companies traded on the NYSE. Bayer will buy seed and pesticide firm Monsanto for $65 billion on Thursday. Bayer announced that they will be replacing the Monsanto name with Bayer’s, so it will no longer be eligible for the S&P 500 as its own brand.
The social media firm has seen its share value rise in the past twelve months, rising almost 108% since last June. And although it has slightly lost value since its IPO (down 9% since then), it has gained shareholder optimism due to its increased ad sales and new users. Since last year, Twitter has gained 9 million users, rising from 327 million to 336 million users.
In fact, the social media company has posted two straight profitable quarters, and if their ad sales continue to grow, they could be due for a third. Their sales in the first three months of 2018 totaled $665 million, which is 21% higher than the first three months of 2017.
Nevertheless, critics are wary about Twitter’s potential to run into the same data breach scandal that Facebook recently encountered with Cambridge Analytica. However, CEO Jack Dorsey isn’t worried by these concerns; he stated that users’ information is public on the platform.
Users can choose their sense of privacy, being as public or private as they like. Plus, there is less of a profile aspect to Twitter; where Facebook has statuses for relatives, relationships, political beliefs, etc., Twitter has just a short biography, tweets, favorites, and retweets. Thus, although user data can be gleaned from these aspects, the data is far less telling and detailed as Facebook’s.
The entrance of Twitter into the S&P 500 represents a major step for the company. The once-struggling social media company is finally becoming a formidable player in the industry.
Featured image via Pixabay/PhotoMIX-Company
