Twitter’s American Sales Grew by Just 1%; 9% of Workforce to be Culled

There isn’t any other way to describe this quarter other than a solid beat. Clearly, the expectations were very grim and the company was able to deliver a better quarter. However, US sales only rose by 1%. Think about that for a second.

Has Twitter ever been more relevant and active than now? World tensions are on the rise. The elections and the Wikileaks are keeping people glued to Twitter, in order to get the news first. Having said all that, the best Jack and his band of morons could do is a 1% earnings beat?

To be honest, in spite of the best, I view these numbers in the worst way possible. They’ve failed to cash in on a watershed moment in American politics.

On top of that, they’ve culling 9% of the work force.

Dreary.

Reports Q3 (Sep) earnings of $0.13 per share, $0.04 better than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.09; revenues rose 8.3% year/year to $616 mln vs the $605.5 mln Capital IQ Consensus.

Q3 adjusted EBITDA of $181 million, up 28% year-over-year, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 29% (Guidance was $135-150 mln)

Revenue Breakdown

Advertising revenue totaled $545 million, an increase of 6% y/y.

Mobile advertising revenue was 90% of total advertising revenue.

Data licensing and other revenue totaled $71 million, an increase of 26% y/y.

U.S. revenue totaled $374 million, an increase of 1% y/y
International revenue totaled $242 million, an increase of 21% y/y

User Metrics

Total ad engagements were up 91% y/y
Cost per engagement (CPE) was down 44% y/y
Average monthly active users (MAUs) were 317 million for Q3, up 3% year-over-year and compared to 313 million in the previous quarter.

Average U.S. MAUs were 67 million for Q3, up 1% year-over-year and compared to 66 million in the previous quarter.

Average international MAUs were 250 million for Q3, up 4% year-over-year and compared to 247 million in the previous quarter.
Mobile MAUs represented 83% of total MAUs.

Average daily active usage (DAU) grew 7% year-over-year, an acceleration from 5% in Q2 and 3% in Q1.
FY16

Adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $700 to $715 million
Adjusted EBITDA margin on GAAP revenue to be 27.5% to 28% (Prior 26-27%);

Capital expenditures to be no more than $360 million (Prior $300-375 mln)
Q4

Stock-based compensation expense to be in the range of $150 to $160 million;

GAAP share count to be in the range of 715 to 720 million shares;

Non-GAAP share count to be in the range of 725 to 735 million shares.

Sell the news.

A deal like this is better for stocks than any earnings announcement. The chips are alive and well. Consolidation is something of a trend for the industry. This deal was leaked a thousand different times and still got done. Amazing.

Via Briefing

Pursuant to the agreement, a subsidiary of Qualcomm will commence a tender offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares of NXP for $110.00 per share in cash, representing a total enterprise value of approximately $47 billion.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of calendar 2017.

Qualcomm intends to fund the transaction with cash on hand and new debt. The transaction is structured to enable tax efficient use of offshore cash flow to rapidly reduce leverage. Qualcomm is committed to maintaining its strong investment-grade credit ratings.

The combined company is expected to have annual revenues of more than $30 billion, serviceable addressable markets of $138 billion in 2020 and leadership positions across mobile, automotive, IoT, security, RF and networking. The transaction has substantial strategic and financial benefits:

Complementary technology leadership in strategically important areas: The transaction combines leadership in general purpose and automotive grade processing, security, automotive safety sensors and RF; enabling more complete system solutions.

Mobile: A leader in mobile SoCs, 3G/4G modems and security.
Automotive: A leader in global automotive semiconductors, including ADAS, infotainment, safety systems, body and networking, powertrain and chassis, secure access, telematics and connectivity.

IoT and Security: A leader in broad-based microcontrollers, secure identification, mobile transactions, payment cards and transit; strength in application processors and connectivity systems.

Networking: A leader in network processors for wired and wireless communications and RF sub-segments, Wave-2 11ac/11ad, RF power and BTS systems.

Enhanced go-to-market capabilities to serve our customers: The combination of Qualcomm’s and NXP’s deep customer and ecosystem relationships and distribution channels enables the ability to deliver leading products and platforms at scale in mobile, automotive, IoT, industrial, security and networking.

Shared track record of innovation and commitment to operational discipline: Both companies have demonstrated a strong commitment to technology leadership and best-in-class product portfolios with focused investments in R&D. Qualcomm and NXP have both taken action to position themselves for profitable growth, while maintaining financial and operational discipline.

Substantial financial benefits: Qualcomm expects the transaction to be significantly accretive to non-GAAP EPS immediately upon close. Qualcomm expects to generate $500 million of annualized run-rate cost synergies within two years after the transaction closes. The transaction utilizes Qualcomm’s strong balance sheet and will be efficiently financed with offshore cash and new debt. The transaction structure allows tax efficient use of offshore cash flow and enables Qualcomm to reduce leverage rapidly.

By God, these numbers look almost too good to be true. The company was supposed to lose hundreds of millions for the quarter, but instead posted a Santa Claus like gift for investors, profiting 256m euros — thanks in large part of fixed income. That’s the current theme with the investment banks — outrageously great trading revenues while everything else sucks windpipe.

Net income was 256 million euros ($279 million) compared with a 6.01 billion-euro loss in the year-earlier period, Deutsche Bank said in a statement from Frankfurt on Thursday. Fourteen analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast a loss of 394 million euros on average. Trading revenue rose 10 percent to 2.6 billion euros, driven by debt and currencies, the lender’s biggest source of income, which beat analysts’ estimates in the quarter.

“We continued to make good progress on restructuring the bank,” Cryan said in the statement. “However, in the past several weeks, these positive developments were overshadowed by the attention around our negotiations concerning the residential mortgage-backed securities matter in the U.S. This had an unsettling effect. The bank is working hard on achieving a resolution of this issue as soon as possible.”

Net revenue rose 2.2 percent to 7.5 billion euros in the third quarter from a year earlier, while risk-weighted assets dropped 5.6 percent in that period. The cost-to-income ratio, a measure of profitability was 87 percent, down from 91 percent at the end of June.

Deutsche Bank said it faced 501 million euros of litigation costs in the third quarter, down from 1.21 billion euros a year earlier. That’s less than the 650 million euros 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News forecast on average. Restructuring costs were 76 million euros in the quarter, below the 279 million euros 10 analysts had anticipated on average.

The lender’s common equity Tier 1 ratio, a key measure of its financial strength, stood at 11.1 percent at the end of September compared with 10.8 percent at the end of June. On average, 13 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast a ratio of 10.9 percent.

Jesus fucking Christ I am going to get my dick chopped off tomorrow with my short. Lucky for me, it’s only about a 5% position. God willing, he will smite these Nazi collaborators at a later date and bankrupt the big mess without offering safe quarter to any of their C level schemers. But, without question, these look like great numbers and should provide longs with an adequate reason to crush the skeletal frames of short sellers.

Moving on, Barclays also crushed estimates — thanks to trading revenues. You guessed it, fixed income schemes.

Barclays Plc said profit rose 35 percent in the third quarter as revenue from fixed-income trading surged to the highest in more than two years.

Pretax profit climbed to 837 million pounds ($1.02 billion) from 619 million pounds a year earlier, the London-based lender said in a statement Thursday. Excluding one-time items, profit was 1.7 billion pounds, beating the 1.53 billion-pound average estimate of five analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Fixed-income revenue climbed 40 percent from a year earlier to 947 million pounds. The surge echoed the performance of the five major U.S. investment banks, which collectively posted a 49 percent jump in revenue from that business. Bond trading has been spurred by the surprise U.K. referendum to leave the European Union, divergent views on the direction of central-bank rates, and changes in money-market regulations.

All that being said, U.S. investment banks, in spite of their grandiose fixed income gains, haven’t gone anywhere in share price since their earnings. It has been one giant rigged market, with assholes taking all of the money for themselves — leaving us little folk with barely a few millions to live out our pedestrian existence.

I’ve never liked any of these Turkish fuckers. Generally speaking, they’re mentally incapacitated, pushing a perverted liberal agenda. But I love when libtards eat each other. Ergo, I present to you The Young Turks’ analysis on recent Wikileaks and how it implicates the Obama administration for being the bitches of Wall Street — specifically Citi.

.@WikiLeaks: This @BarackObama Administration Is Brought To You By Citigroup pic.twitter.com/9wFRqSrymv

— The Young Turks (@TheYoungTurks) October 26, 2016

This is what one might call ‘asshole subterfuge.’

On one hand, the Goldman Global Asset management head is saying to buy stocks — because ‘they’re cheap’ and the government is going to begin a drunken spending spree of historical proportions — all of which are completely unfounded and utter garbage and total unequivocal shit.

On the other side of Goldman is long term bearshitter and hater of life, David Kostin. His obnoxious mathematical based models point to the exact opposite of what Ms. Cock had to say. He says, based upon the laws of mathematics, stocks are overvalued by any historical reference point and that they’re currently in the 97% of being overpriced.

In other words, Kostin heard the bullish shit coming out of the asset management side of the firm, hedged and shit on it.

In the end, Goldman will always be able to point to a winner — while quietly killing the loser.

Katie Koch, Global Head of Goldman Asset Management, thinks stocks are cheap and that fiscal stimulus is right around the bend, in order to better deal with ‘crumbling roads and bridges.’ We hear this sort of horseshit every election, when candidates promise a utopian world of ‘shovel ready’ jobs for all, leading to pristine infrastructure and joy and endless happiness. The only problem with delving into retard logic is that it’s entirely illogical.

Katie surmises the fiscal stimulus budget could be as much as $3t. This is laughably stupid, almost to the point of it being a cantankerous trolling exercise by America’s most evil investment bank.

The internet wants Julian Assange to be dead, in order to vilify ‘the establishment’ mercenaries and use Assange as a martyr to further their revolutions from the comforts of their centrally cooled living rooms. Unfortunately, Julian isn’t dead — only without internet access — living the life of an 1980’s recluse, jambox’d in the Ecuadorian embassy for the balance of his miserable life.

In what could only be described as the very worst press conference in the history of mankind, one that forced me to fast forward to somewhat interesting parts, Assange delivers in boring people to death to the point of delusion — causing conspiracy theories to run rampant about this being all a ruse and how no one person could, in fact, be this fucking boring and moribund and devoid of humor — without it being staged by government operatives from a black site.

This is Assange and he’s not dead… at least not yet.

I hope you’re all enjoying the markets today, the little boy on the tricycle — hastily speeding around the edges of a volcano. There are so many narratives to talk about, in light of the recent blow ups at UA-CMG-AAPL. But I’d prefer to fixate on DB.

Their earnings are coming out tomorrow and they’re expected to post dismal results, a loss in the magnitude of 610m euros. Sales are expected to decline as much as 12% to 1.9b euros. And, moreover, they’ll likely discuss the evergreen burden of litigation costs — in light of the DOJ’s $14b fuck you.

I expect numbers to come in much worse than expected, especially since the company was under extreme duress for most of the quarter. Full disclosure, I am short DB and hope and pray to the Gods that it unravels like a ball of yarn — sliding down a steep ramp and into the claws of a vicious cat.

That being said, the price action of the market is reminiscent of dozens of apathetic tapes prior to a big move. Naturally, there are those who believe that move is going to be higher — all entirely possible. My only reservation against the bullish backdrop is the inexorable fact that nothing on the ground speaks to an energetic economy. It seems to me, the only spirited rise these days is in populism — seeing Americans wake up to the rot and waste around them.

Nonetheless, central banks will continue to rig markets in order to preserve their place atop the capstone of the ruling elite. But every so often, the plebeians get to peer at the hideous visage — marred by decades of corrupt and overzealous policies. I do believe we will see such a thing in the earnings of DB tomorrow.

I’m not a big conspiracy theorist, in spite of playing one here on ibc from time to time. Often times, I’m merely amused by things and want to discuss them, only to later regret it after seeing drivel in the comments section. I don’t believe all the polls are fake and would hate to believe every single person at the Washington Post is a bad person, but it’s true.

An old hobby of mine is perusing old newspapers. I collect them and enjoy reading how stupid everyone else was, with the benefit of hindsight.

For example, 36 years ago, to the day, Gallup polls shows Carter up 8 on Reagan.

Even worse than that, on the eve of what would turn out to be the biggest landslide victory in modern America history, the scoundrels and dogs at Washpo showed Carter with a lead, in one of their little polls.

Dated 1984

Washpo is an organization of very low standards, who employs all of the worst students from all of the very worst schools of journalism in America.

I have no reason to constantly keep tabs on the olde sport, but I just can’t help myself until this saga is concluded.

In yet an amazing blow up, Pershing Square, seemingly, timed another gigantic purchase horribly. About a month or so ago, Ackman announced he’d taken a $1.2b position in CMG, or 2.9m shares, a 9.9% stake in the beguiled burrito maker.

Unfortunately for Bill, his deal with the devil has expired and all of his picks are now made using his stupid narcissistic brain of his.

Shares of CMG have imploded today, off by 30 points after reporting abysmal numbers and operating margins that might inspire Jeff Macke to start drawing cartoons about the whole ordeal.

Pershing Square is down roughly 20% for the year, with assets around $10-12b — down by about half from his peak a few years ago.