Twitter Inc (TWTR) Shares Top $60, Setting New Record High

Updated on

The exuberance surrounding Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) continues today as shares topped $60 briefly before retreating a bit. This is the fifth trading session in a row during which Twitter has set a new record high.

Twitter soars to new highs

Twitter shares have climbed more than 40% over the last two weeks Because of the immense run-up in Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) shares, one of the company’s biggest bulls has actually downgraded it. Jay Yarow of Business Insider reports that SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Robert Peck downgraded Twitter to Hold. He did maintain his $50 per share price target, but he said that since the stock was 20% more than his target, he decided to downgrade it.

He provided several reasons for why Twitter shares have risk so quickly, but he doesn’t see any of these reasons as justifying the significant increase in price. He believes Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s purchase of Topsy, plus Twitter’s rollout of its Tailored Audiences ad product both influenced Twitter’s share price. Other reasons he lists are photo direct messages and the implementation of MoPub native ads. He does agree that most of these announcements are positive for Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), but they were largely expected.

What would make Twitter worth $60 a share?

Peck also provided some estimates he thinks would actually make Twitter worth its current share price. He said it would be based on a number of assumptions. For example, he said if an investor needs a “standard 20% annualized return,” this would suggest that Twitter shares would sell for $101 toward the end of 2016. As a result, he said investors would have to pay 17 times “an aggressive” $4 billion revenue estimate for 2017 or 11 times a $6.5 billion estimate in order to justify the share price. This is compared to the industry multiple of eight times in 2015.

The analyst said although he sees these estimates as being achievable, he doesn’t “feel comfortable being that aggressive yet” at Twitter’s current $630 million revenue base.

As of this writing, shares of Twitter Inc (TWTR) were down 1% from the opening price.

Leave a Comment