Finance Trends Letter

Snapchat parent Snap Inc's stock ( SNAP ) is sliding after a downgrade from Morgan Stanley. The stock is set to close -9% on the day. As the updated price chart shows (see annotations), SNAP has been suffering since its first quarterly earnings report back in May 2017 .  Since then, the downtrend has accelerated. After a brief rebound above $21, SNAP has continued to trade at new lows. Today's gap down put the stock well below its IPO price of $17. From Fortune: " Snapchat's Biggest Underwriter Says It Was 'Wrong' About SNAP Stock " "...Morgan Stanley's downgrade is a particularly hard hit for the company as the bank was an underwriter for Snap's IPO, guiding the company through the process. Typically, such underwriters become cheerleaders of the company after it officially goes public, authoring "buy" or "hold" recommendations. And Morgan Stanley was no exception. Following Snap's IPO, Morgan S...

Facebook's stock ( FB ) continues to outperform its beleaguered social media rival, Twitter ( TWTR ).  While Twitter plays mass market catch-up with hearts , Facebook is delivering for its users and giving Wall Street the growth numbers it demands. FB is up 33% year-to-date, while TWTR is down 18% YTD.  From its 2013 IPO week, TWTR has returned -33%. Over the same period, FB shares climbed more than 110%. Click the comparison chart below to enlarge. 1 year ago, we looked at Twitter's stock price performance and concluded that FB had clearly outshined TWTR . As the chart above makes clear, 2015 has been a repeat of 2014. Facebook's shares continue to climb while Twitter struggles to reclaim the $30 level.  This should come as no real surprise to those of you following Finance Trends on Twitter . I've harped on this theme of FB outperforming TWTR for over a year now. Here are a few examples (sorry in advance). Facebook went from IPO flop to strong...

If you follow Finance Trends on Twitter , then you've probably heard me talk about our favorite social media company and its stock ( TWTR ) quite a bit over the past couple years.  However, this will be our first (!) post on Twitter's stock performance here on the website. Now that Twitter has reported 3Q earnings , it's a great time to look at the charts and see where TWTR has been in 2014, and where it may go from here. Let's cut to the chase. Here is a newly updated chart ( click to enlarge ), showing today's price action post-earnings.  TWTR gapped lower after last night's disappointing EPS report, opening near $42 today. Although TWTR managed to move higher during the day, the price action, as viewed from the daily chart, is rather bearish. The stock is now trading below its 50 and 200 day moving averages and it has moved lower the last 2 days on heavy volume. Update : TWTR is now down 31% year-to-date while its rival, Facebook ( FB , which ...

An oldie, but a goodie... In Reminiscences of a Stock Operator , protagonist Larry Livingston (aka Jesse Livermore) reminds readers of an old phrase, "He went short of Harlem" , which veteran speculators used as a shorthand for "he went bust". Maybe the modern version of that phrase is, " he went short of Tesla ".  He shorted Tesla. http://t.co/UDMCJAhh2x $TSLA — David Shvartsman (@FinanceTrends) September 30, 2013 Your ego may be telling you that the stock is "overvalued" and the bulls are wrong, but the market is telling us that Tesla is an emerging new leader in its dynamic growth phase . The price chart shows a very clear uptrend in progress - demand for the stock is fueling its ascent (for now). Until the facts change and the stock chart reveals a topping pattern and a shift towards a "stage 4" decline (see Stan Weinstein and Mark Minervini for more on this), a long or neutral (on the sidelines) bias would likely...

Some recently popular tweets and quotes on trading and risk management from the great stock operator, Jesse Livermore .  These are direct quotes, books, and article links shared with our followers on Twitter and StockTwits.  You can actually click through in the embedded tweets to see who has retweeted or "faved" each item. Since Twitter is a pretty ephemeral medium, I've decided to collect some favorites (yours and mine) and share them here with you.  Enjoy, and thanks, JL! So few people succeed in the market because they have no patience. They want to get rich quickly. - Jesse Livermore — David Shvartsman (@FinanceTrends) October 14, 2013 " @FinanceTrends : How to Trade in Stocks (1940 ed. ebook) - Jesse Livermore http://t.co/dOpetKquFu $STUDY $SPY " — jeff pierce (@zentrader) October 7, 2013 Provocative take on Jesse Livermore's "fatal" trading flaws: http://t.co/ZjMRoRdwnK | What do you think? $STUDY — David Shvartsman...

An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will. - Gustave Le Bon — David Shvartsman (@FinanceTrends) August 24, 2013 Related posts : 1. Good quotes about losers (and losing) . 2. "Know Thyself": Richard Russell on identity .

Trade journaling: noting some missteps and indecisiveness that have hampered recent trades. Trying to find positives too. $$ — David Shvartsman (@FinanceTrends) February 3, 2012

  William Blake etching with watercolor and ink ( Tate collection ) .

"Those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge." - Lao Tzu Those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge. - Lao Tzu — David Shvartsman (@FinanceTrends) December 27, 2012

When Money Dies: Banknotes (Marks) as wallpaper. Weimar Republic, 1923 . * Photo via  Wikipedia ( Deutsches Bundesarchiv ), Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic .  Related posts :  1. FT interviews Adam Fergusson: When Money Dies - Finance Trends. 2. Dying of Money: Financial Sense Newshour special on inflation - Finance Trends.