Analysts Bombard Snap Stock With Bear Notes After Earnings

Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) entered the earnings confessional last night, and its first-quarter report left much to be desired. Snap reported losses of 2 cents per share, which missed analysts' forecasts of a penny profit, on $1.06 billion in revenue, which also just missed expectations. While the social media giant's daily active users (DUA) grew by 18%, higher than estimated, it also issued a muted current-quarter revenue growth forecast. In a prepared statement Snap's CEO Evan Spiegel said the company's first quarter "proved more challenging than we had expected."

Despite the disappointing results, Snap stock was last seen up 4% at $30.58, though the equity saw some wild swings on both sides of the aisle in premarket trading. When we last checked in on SNAP, the shares were attempting to break out of a recent downtrend. And despite today's positive price action, the security is still pacing for its third-consecutive weekly loss.

Analysts, meanwhile, are making some noise. In fact, no less than 18 members of the brokerage bunch lowered their price targets. The lowest of these came from Susquehanna to $34 from $42. There's room for even more price-target cuts, it would seem, as the 12-month consensus price objective sits at $50.37 -- a 70.6% premium to last night's close. 

The equity's options pits are already bursting with activity, too. Within the first half hour of trading, 117,000 calls and 136,000 puts have exchanged hands, which is nine times the intraday average. The most popular position is the weekly 4/22 30-strike call, followed by the 29-strike put in the same series, the former of which is set to expire later today.