Chart Of The Day: Twitter Shares Reach An Inflection Point. Where To Next?

 | Jun 04, 2020 10:05

Last week, Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) took on the leader of the free world and President Donald Trump was not taking it kindly. The social media company determined that a pair of presidential tweets about mail-in ballots being “substantially fraudulent” and “rigged” did not stand up to fact checking, labeling them misinformation and adding links to the actual facts. Days later, Twitter characterized Trump’s tweet about the unrest in Minnesota after George Floyd's death as “glorifying violence,” and appended a notice to it saying it was violating Twitter rules.

The president didn’t take what he considered as an infringement on his freedom of speech silently. He issued a presidential executive order to remake the Communication Decency Act so it would undo social media’s legal immunity from content posted by users.

Trump’s move is not likely to stand up in a court battle. However, it could lead to Twitter having to spend significantly more on managing the tweets on its platform, just when the San Francisco-based company's coffers are running low as advertising revenues have been drying up amid the pandemic.

Its quarterly sales for Q1 rose 3%, the smallest gain for Twitter on this metric in over two years. As well, from March 11 to the end of the quarter, sales plunged by a whopping 27% YoY, and this reoccurred in April. 

So, is it time to sell—or even short—Twitter? Not necessarily. Let’s look at the chart, to gain some perspective.