Snap is gaining ahead of earnings

The Snapchat
ghost makes an appearance on the red carpet at Tribeca Film
Festival.
Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
for Tribeca Film Festival

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Shares of Snap
were up more than 2% in trading Tuesday ahead of the social media
company’s second-quarter earnings report after the closing bell.

Wall Street analysts expect the company to post an adjusted loss
per share of $0.183 for the quarter ended June 30, on revenues of
$249.82 million, according to Bloomberg.

Public for a little over a year, Snap has fallen considerably off
its highs of more than $20 in 2017. The Snapchat parent company
now trades at around $13, or about 45% below its all-time closing
high. Analysts polled by Bloomberg think it will continue to
decline, and they give it an average price target of $11.66.

“From a bigger-picture perspective, the primary area of concern
from marketers and investors alike has been the lack of data
Snapchat offers for targeting purposes,” Mark Kelley, an analyst
at Nomura Instinet, said in a recent note in July initiating
coverage on Snap. 

“But we wonder if the new regulatory environment (GDPR, or
General Data Protection Regulation), with its global spread
inevitably limits the type, amount, and scale of data that
companies are able to store and offer to marketers.”

Kelley has a $13 price target for Snap, and says he will remain
on the sidelines for now until meaningful growth shows up in the
financials.

“If the fundamentals do improve, Snap should benefit from its
exposure to the fastest growing  subsegments of
digital advertising—digital/social video—which likely approaches
$80 billion globally in 2020 (total digital video, including
Social),” he said.

Shares of Snap are down 46% since its initial public offering in
March 2017.

Check back here for Snap’s full earnings report after 4 p.m.
Tuesday.

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