Reddit shares jumped as much as 70% in their debut on Thursday in the first initial public offering for a major social media company since Pinterest hit the market in 2019.
The 19-year-old website that hosts millions of online forums priced its IPO on Wednesday at $34 a share, the top of the expected range. Reddit and selling shareholders raised about $750 million from the offering, with the company collecting about $519 million.
The stock opened at $47 and reached a high of $57.80. At that price, the company had a market cap of about $10.9 billion. Reddit shares then dropped to $48.64 roughly a half hour after they began trading, giving the company a market cap of about $7.9 billion.
Trading under the ticker symbol “RDDT,” Reddit is testing investor appetite for new tech stocks after an extended dry spell for IPOs. Since the peak of the technology boom in late 2021, hardly any venture-backed tech companies have gone public and those that have — like Instacart and Klaviyo last year — have underwhelmed. On Wednesday, data center hardware company Astera Labs made its public market debut on Nasdaq and saw its shares soar 72%, underscoring investor excitement over businesses tied to the surge in artificial intelligence.
At its IPO price, Reddit was valued at about $6.5 billion, a haircut from the company’s private market valuation of $10 billion in 2021, which was a boom year for the tech industry. The mood changed in 2022, as rising interest rates and soaring inflation pushed investors out of high-risk assets. Startups responded by conducting layoffs, trimming their valuations and shifting their focus to profit over growth.
Reddit’s annual sales for 2023 rose 20% to $804 million from $666.7 million a year earlier, the company detailed in its prospectus. The company recorded a net loss of $90.8 million last year, narrower than its loss of $158.6 million in 2022.
Based on its revenue over the past four quarters, Reddit’s market cap at IPO gave it a price-to-sales ratio of about 8. Alphabet trades for 6.1 times revenue, Meta has a multiple of 9.7, Pinterest’s sits at 7.5 and Snap trades for 3.9 times sales, according to FactSet.
In addition to those companies, Reddit also counts X, Discord, Wikipedia and Amazon’s Twitch streaming service as competitors in its prospectus.
Reddit is betting that data licensing could become a major source of revenue, and said in its filing that it’s entered “certain data licensing arrangements with an aggregate contract value of $203.0 million and terms ranging from two to three years.” This year, Reddit said it plans to recognize roughly $66.4 million in revenue as part of its data licensing deals.
Google has also entered into an expanded partnership with Reddit, allowing the search giant to obtain more access to Reddit data to train AI models and improve its products.
Reddit revealed on March 15 that the Federal Trade Commission is conducting a nonpublic inquiry “focused on our sale, licensing, or sharing of user-generated content with third parties to train AI models.” Reddit said it was “not surprised that the FTC has expressed interest” in the company’s data licensing practices related to AI, and that it doesn’t believe that it has “engaged in any unfair or deceptive trade practice.”
Reddit was founded in 2005 by technology entrepreneurs Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, the company’s CEO. Existing stakeholders, including Huffman, sold a combined 6.7 million shares in the IPO.
As part of the IPO, Reddit gave some of its top moderators and users, known as Redditors, a chance to buy stock through a directed-share program. Companies like Airbnb, Doximity and Rivian have used similar programs to reward their power users and customers.
“I hope they believe in Reddit and support Reddit,” Huffman told CNBC in an interview on Thursday. “But the goal is just to get them in the deal. Just like any professional investor.”
Redditors have expressed skepticism about the IPO, both because of the company’s financials and its often troubled relationship with moderators. Huffman said he recognizes that reality and acknowledged the controversial subreddit Wallstreetbets, which helped spawn the surge in meme stocks like GameStop.
“That’s the beautiful thing about Reddit, is that they tell it like it is,” Huffman said. “But you have to remember they’re doing that on Reddit. It’s a platform they love, it’s their home on the internet.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is one of Reddit’s major shareholders along with Tencent and Advance Magazine Publishers, the parent company of publishing giant Condé Nast. Altman’s stake in the company was worth over $400 million before the stock began trading. Altman led a $50 million funding round into Reddit in 2014 and was a member of its board from 2015 through 2022.
Reddit, the 19-year-old website that hosts millions of online forums, priced its IPO on Wednesday at $34 a share, the top of the expected range.
The offering brought in $519 million, according to a press release, and values the company at close to $6.5 billion. Reddit had planned to price the deal at $31 to $34 a share.
Reddit’s public market debut on Thursday, under ticker symbol “RDDT,” will be the first for a major social media company since Pinterest’s debut in 2019 and one of the very few venture-backed tech deals of the past two years. Reddit sold 15.28 million shares in the offering, while existing shareholders sold another 6.72 million.
The company is taking a haircut from its private market valuation of $10 billion in 2021 at the peak of the tech boom. Soaring inflation and rising interest rates pushed investors out of risky assets in 2022, eventually forcing startups to downsize, slash their valuations and focus on profit over growth.
On Wednesday, data center hardware company Astera Labs went public, and saw its shares skyrocket 72%, as investors flock to anything involving artificial intelligence. However, the IPO market has been in an extended dry spell for more than two years, with Instacart, Klaviyo and Arm Holdings among the few tech companies to hold offerings over that stretch.
Reddit’s core business of online advertising faces competition from industry giants like Alphabet and Meta. The company also counts Snap, X, Pinterest, Discord, Wikipedia and Amazon’s Twitch streaming service as competitors, according to its prospectus.
Revenue increased 20% last year to $804 from $666.7 million in 2022. Its net loss in 2023 was $90.8 million, marking an improvement from the $158.6 million net loss it recorded the previous year.
The company has said in filings that data licensing could become a big money maker, and that it plans to recognize about $66.4 million in such deals in 2024. The company recently entered an expanded partnership with Google, allowing the search giant more access to Reddit data to train AI models and other tasks.
Last week, Reddit said the Federal Trade Commission sent a letter to the company inquiring about its data-licensing practices.
As part of the initial public offering, Redditgave some of its leading moderators and users, known as Redditors, a chance to buy stock through a directed-share program. It’s a model that was previously used by Airbnb, Doximity and Rivian to reward their power users and customers.
A display for image sharing and social media service Pinterest is seen at the Collision conference in Toronto, Ontario, Canada June 23, 2022.
Chris Helgren | Reuters
Pinterest shares plummeted in extended trading on Thursday after the company issued a weaker-than-expected forecast and missed on revenue.
Revenue: $981 million vs. $991 million expected, according to LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv.
Earnings: 53 cents per share, adjusted, vs. 51 cents per share expected, according to LSEG.
Revenue rose 12% year-over-year from $877.2 million a year earlier, while net income was $201 million, or 29 cents a share, up from the $17.49 million, or 3 cents a share, it brought in the previous year.
Monthly active users in the fourth quarter rose 11% to 498 million, topping analyst estimates of 487 million. The company said its global average revenue per user was $2, lower than analyst estimates of $2.05.
Pinterest said first-quarter revenue will be between $690 million and $705 million, which equates to year-over-year growth of 15% to 17%. The middle of that range, $697.5 million, is below the average analyst estimate of $703 million.
The stock initially sank as much as 28% to an after-hours low of $29.40. It then pared some of its losses, climbing back to $35.19, representing a 14% decline.
The company’s report comes as the broader digital advertising market is showing recovery, with Meta, Alphabet and Amazon all picking up steam and growing their ad business by double digits in the fourth quarter. The data suggests that businesses are boosting spending on online promotions after cutting back in 2022 and part of 2023 over concerns about the Ukraine-Russian war and high interest rates.
But not all online ad companies are seeing the benefits. Snap shares cratered 35% on Wednesday after the company reported fourth-quarter sales growth of 5%, trailing expectations, and the company also issued weak guidance.
Prior to Thursday’s report, Pinterest shares were up 9.5% this year after surging 53% in 2023.
Costs dropped about 10% from a year ago to $785 million, largely due to a decline in sales and marketing expenses. A year ago Pinterest slashed about 5% of its workforce, part of an industrywide downsizing.
A banner for the online image board Pinterest Inc. hangs from the New York Stock Exchange on the morning Pinterest made its initial public offering, April 18, 2019.
Spencer Platt | Getty Images
Pinterest reported third-quarter earnings on Monday that beat on the top and bottom lines. The stock jumped more than 11% in extended trading.
Here’s how the company did:
Revenue: $763.2 million vs. $743.5 million expected, according to LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv.
Earnings: 28 cents per share, adjusted, vs. 20 cents expected, according to LSEG.
The number of global monthly active users in the quarter rose 8% from a year earlier to 482 million. Analysts were expecting Pinterest to report 473 million global monthly active users. Average revenue per user was $1.61, which was higher than analysts’ projections of $1.59.
“As we lean into Pinterest’s unique differentiators as a visual search, discovery, and shopping platform, we’re finding our best product market fit in years,” Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said in a statement. “Our users are engaging deeply and we’re delivering better results for advertisers through improved measurement and innovation across the full funnel.”
For the fourth quarter, Pinterest said it expects revenue growth of 11% to 13%. The midpoint is higher than analyst estimates, which call for growth of 11.3%, according to LSEG.
Last week, Meta reported better-than-expected third-quarter financial results, but its stock price dropped over 3% after finance chief Susan Li told analysts that the company “observed softer ads in the beginning of the fourth quarter” due to the Israel-Hamas war.
Because of the volatility surrounding the Middle East crisis, Meta widened its fourth-quarter revenue guidance range. Snap also noted some detrimental effects from the Israel-Hamas war in its earnings report last week, and said it wouldn’t provide official fourth-quarter guidance “due to the unpredictable nature of war.”
Snap said it “observed pauses in spending from a large number of primarily brand-oriented advertising campaigns immediately following the onset of the war in the Middle East.”
Pinterest reported a net income for the third quarter of $6.73 million, or a penny a share, compared with a loss of $65.2 million, or 10 cents a share, a year earlier.
The company’s expenses in the quarter rose nearly 2% to $768.2 million from the $753.9 million a year earlier. The company said that its fourth quarter 2023 non-GAAP operating expenses, which don’t include the costs of revenue, will decline in the range of 9% to 13% year over year.
Company executives will host a conference call with analysts on Monday at 4:30 p.m. ET.
Citi has released a list of 20 large-cap growth stocks that it says present opportunities in the event of a pullback.
“Our call since early summer has been to hold Growth and look to buy on pullbacks,” Citi analyst Scott Chronert said in a note released Monday, adding that Citi has had a tactical preference for cyclicals. “However, on the heels of the strong Cyclicals surge during June and July, and our upwardly revised S&P 500 target of 4600, the messaging has been to buy on pullbacks more broadly,” he wrote.
Citi also notes that the Russell 1000 Growth Index RLG
has sold off more than 6% from its mid-July high, although two-thirds of the stocks in the index are down 10% or more, with one-third down more than 20%. “This sets up for interesting intermediate to long-term stock selection opportunities,” Chronert said.
The analyst acknowledged that there is still a risk of economic softening ahead, if not a recession. “Yet, the argument that Growth stocks can show fundamental resilience during periods of broader economic weakening is a theme that we have considered for several years now,” he said.
Set against this backdrop, the analyst firm has compiled a tech-heavy list of 20 stocks that have a buy rating from Citi, have at least 75% of market cap assigned to growth, according to Russell, and have experienced a decline of 10% or more from year-to-date highs since March 31. Other common characteristics of the stocks include consensus estimates of free cash flow per share above March 31 levels and free cash flow per share within or above market-implied five-year-forward estimates.
Shares of Apple, which recently launched its iPhone 15, are down 5.5% in the last three months. Shares of chip maker NVIDIA are up 2.8% over the same period, while Lockheed Martin is down 8.9% and DraftKings is up 8.6%. Las Vegas Sands is down 21.8% and Chipotle is down 8.8%, while Netflix is down 7.8%.
The Russell 1000 Growth Index has climbed down from its year-to-date highs, which Citi believes has set up a “buy growth on a pullback” opportunity. The broader growth leadership index is up 25% in 2023 on a total return basis and peaked at 34% on July 19. Since then, the index has pulled back more than 6%, with significant underlying single-stock dispersion, according to strategist Scott Chronert. Almost two-thirds of the stocks in the index have fallen 10% or more from their 2023 highs, with one-third of the names more than 20% below their year-to-date peaks. “The implication is that there has been more single-stock pressure under the surface than index price action would suggest,” Chronert wrote in a note from Friday. “Essentially, we think there is an attractive medium-term setup for Growth as we should have a decent margin of safety for fundamentals.” Citi screened for growth names to consider on a pullback. The stocks below met the following criteria: A buy rating from the firm. At least 75% of market cap assigned to growth-style per Russell. Down 10% or more from year-to-date highs (after March 31). Consensus free cash flow per share estimates above March 31 levels. FY5 free cash flow per share greater than or equal to market-implied estimates. Take a look at some of the names on the list and where analysts see the stocks headed next. Defense and aerospace company Lockheed Martin is down 18% from its 2023 high in April. In contrast, the company’s free cash flow per share consensus estimate has risen nearly $5 since the end of March. The company has struggled with supplier issues for its aircraft and reduced its full-year delivery forecast for F-35 jets earlier in the month. Shares have fallen 15% year to date. Although image-sharing company Pinterest has had a modest rally following its recent investor day, shares are still down 14% from their year-to-date highs. The stock is still up 8.8% in 2023. The company’s management is forecasting revenue expansion of about 8% this year after a slowdown in 2022 and 2023. The full-year free cash flow per share estimate has gained $2.03 since the end of the first quarter. Chipmakers Nvidia and KLA also made the list. Nvidia, which has surged more than 188% year to date, is now down 18% from its highest level in late August. While Nvidia’s monumental year-to-date rally may have some suspecting the stock is overbought, its average price target suggests shares could rally an additional 47.7% from Friday’s close. Nearly 95% of analysts covering the stock rate it a buy. Dutch-based KLA, meanwhile, has declined 14% from its 2023 peak. The stock is still more than 20% higher for the year. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
A Solarpro employee installs a SolarEdge Technologies Inc. inverter at a residential property in Sydney, May 17, 2021.
Brendon Thorne | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Check out the companies making the biggest moves midday:
SolarEdge Technologies — The solar stock tumbled about 19% after the company reported $991 million in revenue, missing analysts’ estimates of $992 million, according to Refinitiv. SolarEdge also issued disappointing third-quarter revenue guidance.
CVS Health — The retail pharmacy stock gained 4% during midday trading Wednesday after the company posted strong earnings and revenue for the second quarter. CVS reported earnings of $2.21 per share on revenue of $88.9 billion, while Wall Street analysts expected $2.11 per share on earnings of $86.5 billion, according to Refinitiv.
Norwegian Cruise Line — The cruise stock sank 3.2%, a day after reporting weaker-than-expected guidance for the third quarter. Its second-quarter earnings, however, topped analysts’ estimates. Shares were also downgraded by Susquehanna to neutral from positive. The Wall Street firm said Norwegian’s return to pre-pandemic EBITDA margin will take some time.
Emerson Electric — Shares rallied 4% following Emerson Electric’s earnings and revenue beat for its fiscal third quarter. The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.29, topping the $1.10 expected from analysts polled by StreetAccount. Revenue was $3.95 billion, compared to the $3.88 billion expected by Wall Street.
Pinterest — The social media platform slid 4.9% despite beating expectations on revenue for the second quarter. Pinterest posted $708 million against FactSet’s $696.4 consensus estimate. Pintrest’s third-quarter revenue growth forecast, however, missed expectations.
Starbucks — Shares added 2.6% following the coffee giant’s earnings report was released. Starbucks adjusted earnings per share for the fiscal third quarter was $1, versus the 95 cents expected by analysts, per Refinitiv. However, revenue fell short at $9.17 billion compared to the $9.39 billion expected.
Advanced Micro Devices — The chipmaker’s shares declined 7.4% in reaction to its second-quarter earnings release on Tuesday after the bell. While the company posted better-than-expected earnings in the prior quarter, its forecast for the third quarter was weaker than analyst estimates amid a weak PC market. Several Wall Street firms, including Bank of America and JPMorgan, said that the company may be nearing the peak of its rally.
Humana — Shares popped 6% after the health insurer reported second-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $8.94, topping the $8.76 per share anticipated by analysts, per StreetAccount. Humana forecasted its Medicare Advantage business will grow by about 825,000 members in 2023.
Generac — Shares dropped nearly 24% after the company posted a second-quarter earnings miss. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.08, versus StreetAccount’s estimate of $1.16. The company also lowered its forecast for residential product sales in the second half, citing a softer-than-expected consumer environment.
Scotts Miracle-Gro — The stock sank 18% after the maker of consumer lawn, garden and pest control products reported an earnings and revenue miss for its third quarter. Scotts also forecast a bigger-than-expected revenue decline for the fiscal 2023 year.
Freshworks — Shares popped nearly 19% after the software-as-a-service company beat expectations for both earnings and revenue. Canaccord Genuity upgraded the stock to buy from hold and hiked its price target to$25 from $15, suggesting 37% upside from Tuesday’s close.
Robinhood — The retail brokerage’s stock shed more than 4% ahead of the company’s quarterly results, due after the bell. Analysts are expecting a quarterly loss of 1 cent, according to StreetAccount.
Paycom Software — Shares tumbled 18.6% despite the payroll provider’s earnings and revenue beat after the bell Tuesday. However, the company’s revenue guidance for the third quarter was $410 million to $412 million, compared to the $412 million expected from analysts polled by StreetAccount.
Car-sharing service Turo filed its IPO prospectus in January 2022. A month earlier, Reddit said it submitted a draft registration for a public offering. Instacart’s confidential paperwork was filed in May of last year.
None of them have hit the market yet.
Despite a bloated pipeline of companies waiting to go public and a rebound in tech stocks that pushed the Nasdaq up 30% in the first half of 2023, the IPO drought continues. There hasn’t been a notable venture-backed tech initial public offering in the U.S. since December 2021, when software vendor HashiCorp debuted on the Nasdaq.
Across all industries, only 10 companies raised $100 million or more in U.S. initial share sales in the first six months of the year, according to FactSet. During the same stretch in 2021, there were 517 such transactions, highlighted by billion-dollar-plus IPOs from companies including dating site Bumble, online lender Affirm, and software developers UiPath and SentinelOne.
As the second half of 2023 gets underway, investors and bankers aren’t expecting much champagne popping for the rest of the year.
Many once high-flying companies are still hanging onto their old valuations, failing to reconcile with a new reality after a brutal 2022. Additionally, muted economic growth has led businesses and consumers to cut costs and delay software purchases, which is making it particularly difficult for companies to comfortably forecast the next couple of quarters. Wall Street likes predictability.
So if you’re waiting on a splashy debut from design software maker Canva, ticket site StubHub or data management company Databricks, be patient.
“There’s a disconnect between valuations in 2021 and valuations today, and that’s a hard pill to swallow,” said Lise Buyer, founder of IPO consultancy Class V Group in Portola Valley, California. “There will be incremental activity after a period of absolute radio silence but it isn’t like companies are racing to get out the door.”
The public markets tell an uneven story. This year’s rally has brought the Nasdaq to within 15% of its record from late 2021, while an index of cloud stocks is still off by roughly 50%.
Some signs of optimism popped up this month as Mediterranean restaurant chain Cava went public on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock more than doubled on its first day of trading, indicating high demand from retail investors. Buyer noted that institutions were also enthused about the deal.
Last Friday, Israeli beauty and tech company Oddity, which runs the Il Makiage and Spoiled Child brands, filed to go public on the Nasdaq.
That all comes after a big month for secondary offerings. According to data from Goldman Sachs, May was the busiest month for public stock sales since November 2021, driven by a jump in follow-on deals.
While investors are craving new names, they’re much more discerning when it comes to technology than they were at the tail end of the decade-long bull market.
Mega-cap stocks Apple and Nvidia have seen outsized gains this year and are back to trading near all-time highs, boosting the Nasdaq because of their hefty weightings in the index. But the advances are not evenly spread across the industry.
In particular, investors who bet on less mature businesses are still hurting. The companies that held the seven-biggest tech IPOs in the U.S. in 2021 have lost at least 40% of their value since their debut. Coinbase, which went public through a direct listing, is down more than 80%.
That year’s IPO class featured high-growth businesses with even higher cash burn, an equation that worked fine until recession concerns and rising interest rates pushed investors into assets better positioned to withstand an economic slowdown and increased capital costs.
Employees of Coinbase Global Inc, the biggest U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, watch as their listing is displayed on the Nasdaq MarketSite jumbotron at Times Square in New York, April 14, 2021.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
Bankers and investors tell CNBC that optimism is picking up, but ongoing economic concerns and the valuation overhang from the pre-2022 era set the stage for a quiet second half for tech IPOs.
One added challenge is that fixed income alternatives are back. Following a lengthy stretch of near-zero interest rates, the Federal Reserve this year lifted its target rate to between 5% and 5.25%. Parking money in short-term Treasurys, certificates of deposit and high-yield savings offerings can now generate annual returns of 5% or more.
“Interest rates are not only about the cost of financing, but also getting investors to trade out of 5% risk-free returns,” said Jake Dollarhide, CEO of Longbow Asset Management. “You can make 15%-20% in the stock market but lose 15%-20%.”
Dollarhide, whose firm has invested in milestone tech offerings like Google and Facebook, says IPOs are important. They offer more opportunities for money managers, and they generate profits for the tech ecosystem that help fund the next generation of innovative companies.
But he understands why there’s skepticism about the window reopening. Perhaps the biggest recent bust in tech investing followed the boom in special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), which brought scores of less mature companies to the public market through reverse mergers.
“It seems the foul odor of failure from the 2021 SPAC craze has spoiled the appetite from investors seeking IPOs,” Dollarhide said. “I think that’s done some harm to the traditional IPO market.”
Private markets have felt the impact. Venture funding slowed dramatically last year from record levels and has stayed relatively suppressed, outside of the red-hot area of artificial intelligence. Companies have been forced to cut staff and close offices in order to preserve cash and right-size their business
Pre-IPO companies like Stripe, Canva and Klarna have taken huge hits to their valuations, either through internal measures or markdowns from outside investors.
Few have been hit as hard as Instacart, which has repeatedly slashed its valuation, from a peak of $39 billion to as low as $10 billion in late 2022. Last year, the company confidentially registered for an IPO, but still hasn’t filed publicly and doesn’t have immediate plans to do so.
Similarly, Reddit said in December 2021 that it had confidentially submitted a draft registration statement to go public. That was before the online ad market took a dive, with Facebook suffering through three straight quarters of declining revenue and Google’s ad sales also slipping.
Now Reddit is in the midst of a business model shift, moving its focus beyond ads and toward generating revenue from third-party developers for the use of its data. But that change sparked a protest this month across a wide swath of Reddit’s most popular communities, leaving the company with plenty to sort through before it can sell itself to the public.
A Reddit spokesperson declined to comment.
Turo was so close to an IPO that it went beyond a confidential filing and published its full S-1 registration statement in January 2022. When stocks sold off, the offering was indefinitely delayed. To avoid withdrawing its filing, the company has to continue updating its quarterly results.
Like Instacart, Turo operates in the sharing economy, a dark spot for investors last year. Airbnb, Uber and DoorDash have all bounced back in 2023, but they’ve also instituted significant job cuts. Turo has gone in the opposite direction, more than doubling its full-time head count to 868 at the end of March from 429 at the time of its original IPO filing in 2021, according to its latest filing. The company reportedly laid off about 30% of its staff in 2020, during the Covid pandemic.
Turo and Instacart could still go public by year-end if market conditions continue to improve, according to sources familiar with the companies who asked not to be named because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Byron Deeter, a cloud software investor at Bessemer Venture Partners, doesn’t expect any notable activity this year, and says the next crop of companies to debut will most likely wait until after showing their first-quarter results in 2024.
“The companies that were on file or were considering going out a little over a year ago, they’ve pulled, stopped updating, and overwhelmingly have no plans to refile this calendar year,” said Deeter, whose investments include Twilio and HashiCorp. “We’re 10 months from the real activity picking up,” Deeter said, adding that uncertainty around next year’s presidential election could lead to further delays.
In the absence of IPOs, startups have to consider the fate of their employees, many of whom have a large amount of their net worth tied up in their company’s equity, and have been waiting years for a chance to sell some of it.
Stripe addressed the issue in March, announcing that investors would buy $6.5 billion worth of employee shares. The move lowered the payment company’s valuation to about $50 billion from a high of $95 billion. Deeter said many late-stage companies are looking at similar transactions, which typically involve allowing employees to sell around 20% of their vested stock.
He said his inbox fills up daily with brokers trying to “schlep little blocks of shares” from employees at late-stage startups.
“The Stripe problem is real and the general liquidity problem is real,” Deeter said. “Employees are agitating for some path to liquidity. With the public market still pretty closed, they’re asking for alternatives.”
G Squared is one of the venture firms active in buying up employee equity. Larry Aschebrook, the firm’s founder, said about 60% of G Squared’s capital goes to secondary purchases, helping companies provide some level of liquidity to staffers.
Aschebrook said in an interview that transactions started to pick up in the second quarter of last year and continued to increase to the point where “now it’s overwhelming.” Companies and their employees have gotten more realistic about the market reset, so significant chunks of equity can now be purchased for 50% to 70% below valuations from 2021 financing rounds, he said.
Because of nondisclosure agreements, Aschebrook said he couldn’t name any private company shares he’s purchased of late, but he said his firm previously bought pre-IPO secondary stock in Pinterest, Coursera, Spotify and Airbnb.
“Right now there’s a significant need for that release of pressure,” Aschebrook said. “We’re assisting companies with elongating their private lifecycle and solving problems presented by staying private longer.”
The Nasdaq just wrapped up its fifth straight week of gains, jumping 3.3% over the last five days. It’s the longest weekly winning streak for the tech-laden index since a stretch that ended in November 2021. Coming off its worst year since 2008, the Nasdaq is up 15% to start 2023.
The last time tech stocks enjoyed a rally this long, investors were gearing up for electric carmaker Rivian’s blockbuster IPO, the U.S. economy was closing out its strongest year for growth since 1984, and the Nasdaq was trading at a record.
This time around, there’s far less champagne popping. Cost cuts have replaced growth on Wall Street’s checklist, and tech executives are being celebrated for efficiency over innovation. The IPO market is dead. Layoffs are abundant.
Earnings reports were the story of the week, with results landing from many of the world’s most valuable tech companies. But the numbers, for the most part, weren’t good.
Applemissed estimates for the first time since 2016, Facebook parent Metarecorded a third straight quarter of declining revenue, Google‘s core advertising business shrank, and Amazon closed out its weakest year for growth in its 25-year history as a public company.
While investors had mixed reactions to the individual reports, all four stocks closed the week with solid gains, as did Microsoft, which reported earnings the prior week and issued lackluster guidance in projecting revenue growth this quarter of only about 3%.
Meta was the top performer among the group this week, with the stock soaring 23%, its third-best week ever. In its earnings report Wednesday, revenue came in slightly above estimates, even with sales down year over year, and the first-quarter forecast was roughly in line with expectations.
The key to the rally was CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pronouncement in the earnings statement that 2023 would be the “Year of Efficiency” and his promise that “we’re focused on becoming a stronger and more nimble organization.”
“That was really the game-changer,” Stephanie Link, chief investment strategist at Hightower Advisors, said in an interview Friday with CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“The quarter itself was OK, but it was the cost-cutting that they finally got religion on, and that’s why I think Meta really took off,” she said.
Zuckerberg acknowledged that the times are changing. From the year of its IPO in 2012 through 2021, the company grew between 22% and 58% a year. But in 2022 revenue fell 1%, and analysts expect growth of only 5% in 2023, according to Refinitiv.
On the earnings call, Zuckerberg said he doesn’t expect declines to continue, “but I also don’t think it’s going to go back to the way it was before.” Meta announced in November the elimination of 11,000 jobs, or 13% of its workforce.
Link said the reason Meta’s stock got such a big bounce after earnings was because “expectations were so low and the valuation was so compelling.” The stock lost almost two-thirds of its value last year, far more than its mega-cap peers.
Apple, which slid 27% last year, gained 6.2% this week despite reporting its steepest drop in revenue in seven years. CEO Tim Cook said results were hurt by a strong dollar, production issues in China affecting the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, and the overall macroeconomic environment.
“Apple is navigating what is, of course, a very difficult environment quite well overall,” Dan Flax, an analyst at Neuberger Berman, told “Squawk Box” on Friday. “As we move through the coming months and quarters, we’ll see a return to growth and the market will begin to discount that. We continue to like the name even in the face of these macro challenges.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, who succeeded Jeff Bezos in mid-2021, took the unusual step of joining the earnings call with analysts Thursday after his company issued a weaker-than-expected forecast for the first quarter. In January, Amazon began layoffs, which are expected to result in the loss of more than 18,000 jobs.
“Given this last quarter was the end of my first full year in this role and given some of the unusual parts in the economy and our business, I thought this might be a good one to join,” Jassy said on the call.
Managing expenses has become a big theme for Amazon, which expanded rapidly during the pandemic and subsequently admitted that it hired too many people during that period.
“We’re working really hard to streamline our costs,” Jassy said.
Alphabet is also in downsizing mode. The company announced last month that it’s slashing 12,000 jobs. Its revenue miss for the fourth quarter included disappointing sales at YouTube from a pullback in ad spending and weakness in the cloud division as businesses tighten their belts.
Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s finance chief, told CNBC’s Deirdre Bosa that the company is meaningfully slowing the pace of hiring in an effort to deliver long-term profitable growth.
Alphabet shares ended the week up 5.4% even after giving up some of their gains during Friday’s sell-off. The stock is now up 19% for the year.
Ruth Porat, Alphabet CFO, at the WEF in Davos, Switzerland on May 23rd, 2022.
Adam Galica | CNBC
Should the Nasdaq continue its upward trend and notch a sixth week of gains, it would match the longest rally since a stretch that ended in January 2020, just before the Covid pandemic hit the U.S.
Investors will now turn to earnings reports from smaller companies. Some of the names they’ll hear from next week include Pinterest, Robinhood, Affirm and Cloudflare.
Another area in tech that flourished this week was the semiconductor space. Similar to the consumer tech companies, there wasn’t much by way of growth to excite Wall Street.
AMD on Tuesday beat on sales and profit but guided analysts to a 10% year-over-year decline in revenue for the current quarter. Intel, AMD’s primary competitor, reported a disastrous quarter last week and projected a 40% decline in sales in the March quarter.
Still, AMD jumped 14% for the week and Intel rose almost 8%. Texas Instruments and Nvidia also notched nice gains.
The semiconductor industry is dealing with a glut of extra parts at PC and server makers and falling prices for components such as memory and central processors. But after a miserable year in 2022, the stocks are rebounding on signs that an easing of Federal Reserve rate increases and lightening inflation numbers will give the companies a boost later this year.
E-commerce stocks skyrocketed during the height of the Covid pandemic, as at-home consumers made purchases online rather than in-store. But when the economy reopened, consumers prioritized spending on travel and experiences over goods.
That shift, along with the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes, sent e-commerce stocks tumbling from their highs last year.
Cramer cautioned that while he believes the group’s struggles are temporary, it’s still too early to buy many of the names in the e-commerce space — including Amazon.
He said that one of his biggest concerns with the company is that it needs to cut more costs. Amazon said earlier this month that it plans to lay off over 18,000 employees.
While that might seem like a sizable cut, “this is a company with well over a million employees — to them, this is a drop in the bucket,” Cramer said.
But Amazon’s stock will eventually bottom, he said. “I think the business can eventually make a big comeback and there will come a point where the stock’s a screaming buy.”
Disclaimer: Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of Amazon.
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