Pinterest PINS

[sjos]

Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) shares rose nearly 5.5% in premarket trading on Thursday after strong results from online advertising competitor Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) and announcing layoffs of roughly 5% of the company.
The Bill Ready-led Pinterest (PINS) is laying off about 150 employees, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. The impacted employees are from various teams.
A Pinterest (PINS) spokesman confirmed the cuts to Reuters but did not specify the number of employees being let go. The spokesman added that impacted employees would be given severance packages, benefits and other items.
Pinterest (PINS) is slated to report fourth-quarter results on February 6. A consensus of analysts estimate the company will earn 28 cents per share on $886.78M in revenue.
On Wednesday, investment firm UBS said the poor results from Snap (SNAP) did not bode well for Pinterest (PINS) and the online ad space in general.

Bron: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3931144-p ... a-recovery

Momenteel: PINS 29.06 +8.84%

[sjos]

Pinterest: Time To Go Long
Feb. 07, 2023 3:12 AM ETPinterest, Inc. (PINS)

Summary
In the days prior to this result, I made a bullish assertion that Pinterest's stock was primed to go higher. Not because I believed that Pinterest would find its footing. Rather, because nobody believed in them either. When expectations are low, anything that isn't worse news can be fuel for the stock. And that's what I'm not arguing.

Investment Thesis
Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) reported a mediocre quarter. As we headed into the quarter, last week, I updated my bullish stance.
I won't declare that this quarter was all that impressive. But I will echo what I previously stated:
"The combination of investor sentiment, analyst expectation, and its new CEO, implies that positive changes are likely to unfold in the very near term."
Again, the catalysts that will propel this stock higher are all in place. With investors' expectations so muted I believe that the risk-reward here is now positive.
The business is clearly struggling in this environment. But there again, what advertising business isn't struggling? What's more, even though the guidance for Q1 2023 points to around 4% y/y growth rates, I suspect, that it will probably end up coming in around 6% to 7% y/y CAGR.
That means that Pinterest's near-term revenue growth rate trajectory has found a bottom.
Where the Bull Case is Found
One thing is clear about PINS, it has saturated its US and Canada market and is seeing no growth there. But where the bull case is found is in its ability to increase its pricing power in the US and Canada. More specifically, Q4 2022 saw its ARPU in the US and Canada increase by 6% y/y.
This is far from a triumph, but given not the share price reaction, but the actual results from Meta (META), where revenues were flat in the US and Canada, this provides investors with some hope that the advertising market in the US and Canada may not be as bad as many feared for PINS.
While I recognize that Pinterest saw an increase in users (''MAUs'') in other areas outside of the US and Canada, I don't believe that's what investors are holding this investment thesis to. After all, the fact that the stock initially fell, but as the earnings call proceeded the stock reversed nearly all the way. This leads me to conclude that it wasn't so much the increase in its user base this quarter that attracted investors back to the stock.
So what drove investors back into this name? I believe it was CEO Bill Ready's comments:
[...] video also drives deeper engagement [...] last quarter, we grew our supply of video content 30% quarter-over-quarter. [...] we believe high-quality and inspiring content will further deepen engagement, especially for Gen Z.
[...] while 4% to 6% revenue growth typically wouldn't be something to write home about, we're actually outperforming compared to a lot of our peers. And we believe we're gaining share, especially with our larger and most sophisticated advertisers, where we're gaining more share of wallet.
Pinterest's CEO's argument that Pinterest appears to be taking market share from its peers, through stronger engagement and pricing power can indeed be seen in its results.
What's more, keep in mind the share price performance of Pinterest since Bill Ready took the reins of the company. I will not go as far as declaring that Pinterest is the only advertising company making a comeback in the past few months. But what I do believe it's safe to conclude is that analysts and investors appear to be buying into Pinterest's CEO's vision for increasing engagement and commercialization of Pinterest's user base.

Now, let's get to some bad news.
Profitability Profile Moving in the Wrong Direction
Pick any profitability metric you want from Pinterest and you'll see the same general direction. On a y/y comparison, there's no doubt that this quarter's profitability was materially worse than last year's. And even though Pinterest states that it will lower its non-GAAP operating expenses by approximately low double digits sequentially in Q1 2023, however, this still points to a y/y increase compared with Q1 2022. All that being said, I wonder whether it's possible that the bad news is already fully factored into the share price?

PINS Expectations are Very Low
What we see here is that for months analysts have been downwards revising their revenue expectations for Pinterest. It's not that I will say that the company hasn't got any issues, Pinterest really has a lot of issues. And personally, I'm strongly opposed to Pinterest squandering its capital to buy back shares.
But I can clean out my closet all I want because the point of fact is that Pinterest's valuation has already fully compressed. With the power of hindsight, many investors, myself included, were deluded to be bullish on advertising companies in the bull market. But the thing with the bull market is that it's difficult to see when you are in it. It's only painfully obvious later.

The Bottom Line
There's a lot not to like about Pinterest. They are squandering cash to buy back shares when they could use that capital to invest in their business. On the other hand, they have no debt. Well, that's not quite true. They don't have typical financial debt. But with the stock price so low, most of the employees' SBC is worth little. And if Pinterest wishes to retain talent, it has to make sure that executives are positively incentivized. In sum, this was a passable quarter. But with expectations so low, the risk-reward looking ahead looks good.

bron: https://seekingalpha.com/article/457582 ... to-go-long?
PINS 27.89 +1.49%

[sjos]

Senators unveil bill to rein in TikTok, 'adversarial' tech
Mar. 07, 2023 3:27 PM ETSnap Inc. (SNAP),
China"s WeChat And TikTok Face Trump Bans In The U.S
Kevin Frayer

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner introduced bipartisan legislation Tuesday afternoon aimed at policing the threat of technology from "adversarial" nations, a move lately pointed at a potential ban of Chinese-based hit social-media app TikTok (BDNCE).
The "RESTRICT Act" will give the president (via the Commerce secretary) "new authorities to mitigate the threat posed by technology products from adversarial nations," Warner (a Democrat) said alongside his key co-sponsor, Republican Sen. John Thune. The two cited support from 12 senators from both major parties on the bill.

Key U.S. rivals to TikTok started the day sharply higher but have pared gains alongside the broader market downdraft: Snap (NYSE:SNAP) is still +1%, though Pinterest (PINS) has turned to fractional gains, and Meta Platforms (META) is holding on to a 0.2% gain.
The senators are pursuing a systemic approach rather than solving problems one by one, Warner said. Before TikTok, "there was Huawei and ZTE ... before that there was Kaspersky Labs," Warner said.
Tools to mitigate the threats have so far been limited, Warner said, citing the example of the FCC banning China Mobile and China Telecom, but being unable to stop those companies' cloud computing/business data services in the U.S. because of jurisdiction issues.
"So instead of playing whack-a-mole on Huawei one day, ZTE the next, Kaspersky, TikTok, we need a more comprehensive approach to evaluating and mitigating these threats posed by these foreign technologies from these adversarial nations," Warner said.
The bill if passed will allow the secretary of Commerce to take actions "up to and including a ban" on tech names based in six nations: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Cuba.
But as for TikTok (BDNCE) in particular, "I'm particularly concerned about TikTok's connections to the Chinese Communist Party, which repeatedly, repeatedly spies on American citizens," John Thune said.
"It's safe to assume that if the CCP is willing to lie about its spy balloon and cover up the origins of the worst pandemic in 100 years, they'll lie about using TikTok to spy on American citizens," Thune said.

bron: https://seekingalpha.com/news/3945044-s ... arial-tech

[sjos]

Pinterest jumps amid solid Q3 beat, with average revenues also gaining
Oct. 30, 2023

Pinterest stock (NYSE:PINS) jumped 8% in early postmarket action after the company beat expectations on top and bottom lines with its third-quarter earnings.
Revenues hit unexpected double-digit growth to rise to $763M, about $20M better than expected, and global monthly active users rose by 8% to 482M, vs. 473.5M expected.
The company also beat profit expectations, swinging to a gain of $6.7M on a GAAP basis from a year-ago loss of $65.2M. On an adjusted basis, non-GAAP net income rose 153% to $193.3M from $76.5M.
“We continued to accelerate the business in Q3,” said Pinterest (PINS) CEO Bill Ready. “We are driving strong revenue performance, robust global MAU growth, and substantial margin expansion." He also said as the company leaned on its differentiators, it's finding the "best product/market fit in years."
As expected, international growth in revenues and users outpaced that in the U.S./Canada, which saw revenue growth of 8% and user growth of 1%. Revenue in Europe rose 33% and it gained 29% in the rest of the world, while European user growth was 7% and rest of world 12%.
Meanwhile, average revenue per user rose 5% in the U.S. and Canada, but jumped 26% in Europe and rose 16% in the rest of the world.

Conference call to come at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Bron: https://seekingalpha.com/news/4026527-p ... so-gaining.