Social stocks have outperformed year-to-date, up ~55% versus the Nasdaq's rally of 20%, with Snap (SNAP) being the top performer up 120% after lagging the group in 2018, Jefferies analyst Brent Thill tells investors in a research note. The analyst continues to prefer share of Facebook (FB) in social with a Buy rating and $200 price target. He sees upside in average revenue per user and operating expenditure growth. Meanwhile, Thill is "incrementally positive" on Snap's "encouraging momentum," but says the company is "not out of the woods yet." If Snap can deliver on daily active user growth in Q1 it should be a catalyst for shares, however with the stock trading at nine-times 2019, these improvements are largely priced in, Thill tells investors in a pre-earnings research note. And while the analyst remains "fundamental fans" of Twitter, he views the stock as "reasonably valued." Further, Twitter faces tough comps for international in the first half of 2019 and for the U.S. in the second half of the year, Thill points out.

HSBC analyst Mohammed Khallouf upgraded Snap to Buy from Reduce.

ByteDance is exploring scenarios for selling a majority stake in TikTok US, preferably to a non-tech company, and without the recommendation algorithm, The Information's Erin Woo, Qianer Liu and Juro Osawa report, citing three people with knowledge of the discussions. Publicly traded companies in the social media space that compete with TikTok include Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOGL), Pinterest (PINS) and Snap (SNAP). Reference Link

Check out this evening's top movers from around Wall Street, compiled by The Fly. HIGHER AFTER EARNINGSSnap (SNAP) up... To see the rest of the story go to thefly.com. See Story Here

Sees FY24 content and developer partner costs/advertising and other costs 19%-21% of revenue. Sees FY24 infrastructure cost per DAU 83c-85c. Says headcount and personnel costs will grow modestly as through 2024. Says total time spent watching Spotlight content increased more than 125% year-over-year. Says excited by progress with small- and medium-size advertising partners. Says onboarded over 1,500 Snap Stars in Q1. Says Snapchat+ subscribers more than tripled year-over-year, surpassing 9M subscribers in Q1. Says continues to invest in Generative AI models and automation for the creation of ML and AI Lenses. Comments and guidance taken from Q1 investor presentation slides.

The company said, "As we enter Q2, we anticipate continued growth of our global community, and as a result, our Q2 guidance is built on the assumption that DAU will be approximately 431 million in Q2. We are focused on executing against our roadmap to deliver improvements to our DR advertising platform to drive improved results for our advertising partners and accelerate topline growth. Our Q2 guidance range for revenue is $1,225 million to $1,255 million, implying year-over-year revenue growth of 15% to 18%. Given the revenue range above, and our investment plans for the quarter ahead, we estimate that Adjusted EBITDA will be between $15 million and $45 million in Q2."

Snap (SNAP) is expected to report results of its first quarter on Thursday, October 25, with a conference call scheduled for 5:30 pm EDT. What to watch... To see the rest of the story go to thefly.com. See Story Here

Meta (META), Google (GOOGL), Snap (SNAP), and Amazon (AMZN) all benefit from the U.S.' ban of TikTok, The Washington Post's Will Oremus reports. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg criticized TikTok's Chinese roots in 2019, part of Meta's broader campaign, Oremus writes. Reference Link

Check out this evening's top movers from around Wall Street, compiled by The Fly. HIGHER AFTER EARNINGSImpinj (PI) up... To see the rest of the story go to thefly.com. See Story Here

Welcome to "#SocialStocks," The Fly's weekly recap of Wall Street's reactions to social media stock news.  TIK TOK BAN... To see the rest of the story go to thefly.com. See Story Here

TikTok Policy issued the following statement on the enactment of "the TikTok Ban": "This unconstitutional law is a TikTok ban, and we will challenge it in court. We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail. The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep U.S. data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation. This ban would devastate seven million businesses and silence 170 million Americans. As we continue to challenge this unconstitutional ban, we will continue investing and innovating to ensure TikTok remains a space where Americans of all walks of life can safely come to share their experiences, find joy, and be inspired." Publicly traded companies in the social media space that compete with TikTok include Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOGL), Pinterest (PINS) and Snap (SNAP). Reference Link