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Money manager and blogger Josh Brown said Tuesday he has sold all of his stock in Twitter, expressing a lack of confidence in CEO Jack Dorsey and the company’s decision to ban political ads.
“You’ve got to separate a service you love from an investable company,” Brown, who has 1.1 million Twitter followers, said on CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report.”
Brown said he took a small profit Tuesday when he completely exited his position. He said he has bought shares at various price points, some when the stock traded in the $20s and up in the $40s around its IPO.
“I have been very wrong on Twitter,” said Brown, who said he had planned to gradually sell out of Twitter in 2020. He runs Ritholtz Wealth Management, a New York City-based investment advisory firm. He also writes “The Reformed Broker” blog.
But Brown said Dorsey’s decision to move to Africa for a few months next year, plus Dorsey’s decision this fall to ban all political ads rather than fact-check them on the social-media platform, accelerated his decision to sell.
Brown called Dorsey, who also is CEO of Square, a “half” CEO, and said “I really don’t understand what’s going on with the governance of this company.”
The stock is trading just below $32 intraday Tuesday.
Twitter went public on Nov. 7, 2013, and ended its first trading day at $44.94 — up nearly 73% from its $26 offering price.
The stock shot up in the $70s per share shortly after its IPO. But it traded down in the teens in 2016 for a while. It got back in the $40s last year and then bounced around to lower levels.
In a year when the S&P 500 was up 30% and rival Facebook was up 56%, Twitter shares were just 11.7% higher in 2019.
