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Snap is on a tear.
In Monday’s premarket, shares were up more than 4%, at $12.35, after RBC upgraded the stock to outperform and projected a $17 price target.
As of Friday, shares of the social media company have more than doubled this year, adding nearly $10 billion in market value. The stock gained more than 7% last week after the company announced new features, including a new ad-supported gaming platform.
Despite the company’s push into additional revenue channels, Point View Wealth Management’s John Petrides says that from a fundamental perspective he wouldn’t touch the stock here.
“Yes it’s up 100%, but no thank you,” he said Friday on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” “This has remnants of 1999 where it’s being valued on eyeballs and yes the network value is worth something, but this is not my cup of tea,” he said.
He specifically points to the company’s lack of profitability as well as its “hemorrhaging cash flow” as reasons to stay away.
Snap’s surge this year has been swift, but it does follow a bleak 2018 that saw the stock shed more than 60% of its value. The stock is still more than 30% away from its IPO price of $17, and roughly 60% below its March 2017 intraday all-time high of $29.44.
From a technical perspective, however, Piper Jaffray’s Craig Johnson says Snap’s chart may be flashing a buy signal.
“You can see a clear downtrend reversal that’s starting to form here,” he said after analyzing the trading pattern. “You can also see that on the chart, we’ve got a short interest level that is also starting to fall.”
He says that the downtrend reversal is “bullish,” and that he’s watching the $14 mark closely since that will be the next level of resistance. “We would be a buyer of this stock here,” he concluded.
Shares of Snap competitors Facebook and Twitter have gained 34% and 21% this year, respectively.
