Social Wars — Is Snapchat Headed for the Dark Side?
Not so very long ago, in a galaxy very close by…
The social media scene has never been a boring one, has it? It’s a saga full of ups, downs, takeovers and acquisitions. But are we about to see the downfall of one of the bigger names in the industry? We’ll take a closer look at what’s going on with Snapchat, before giving you our regular weekly overview of the top market events. May the force be with you!
Oh, Snap! Is This the End?
If you think about it, it’s actually quite amazing that Snapchat (SNAP) is still going. You might remember, 3 years ago Instagram created an exact clone of the video messaging app — Stories. Within three months, Stories had nearly as many users as Snapchat. Since then, Snapchat has seen user growth drop dramatically.
On the other side of the coin, Instagram Stories’ growth rate per quarter averages around 33%. Instagram’s user base is now twice the size of Snapchat’s (after it lost 3 million users between 2014 and 2019) and it’s falling behind other social media apps in terms of downloads.
Top Social Media Apps Worldwide for September 2019 by Downloads
Source: SensorTower
Surprisingly, SNAP’s stock price has remained quite buoyant amid this rising unpopularity, even climbing over the past 6 months.
Snap Inc Stock Price: 6 Months
Source: Google Finance
Yet many analysts predict that the next 6 months may be extremely rocky for the company, which could see the stock price drop to as low as $5. If that happens, we may see a takeover happen.
Keep an eye on this one!
Key Events This Week
Just about the only guarantee you’ll find in trading is that there’s never a dull moment, something is always happening. Because of that, we like to drop all the most important events for the coming week right here, nice and easy! Here’s what coming up this week.
On Monday, the People’s Bank of China will announce its Interest Rate Decision (CNY).
Tuesday sees two important releases from the Bank of Japan: The Monetary Policy Statement (JPY) and the Interest Rate Decision (JPY). Which is followed by the UK’s equally important ILO Unemployment Rate (Nov) (GBP).
Wednesday is all yours, CAD traders! The Bank of Canada will occupy most of the day, releasing the Consumer Price Index Core (YoY) (Dec), the Rate Statement, the Monetary Policy Report and the Bank’s Interest Rate Decision (All CAD), all in the space of about 3 hours… Phew!
If you still have anything left in the tank, Thursday isn’t going to give you much respite! We’ll have a couple of important Australian employment-rate announcements (AUD); the EU’s ECB Interest Rate Decision and Deposit Rate Decision, plus a Monetary Policy Statement (all EUR); and New Zealand’s Consumer Price Index (YoY) (Q4) (NZD). Finally, we’ll get a look at the Bank of Japan’s Monetary Policy Meeting Minutes (JPY).
Still with us? Good! We’ll close the week on Friday with Germany’s Manufacturing and Composite PMIs (EUR); then we’ll get a peek at the EU’s Composite PMI (EUR); the UK’s preliminary Markit Services PMI (Jan) (GBP); and, finally, Canada’s Retail Sales (MoM) (Nov) (CAD).
… Wow. Holiday season is well and truly over, huh?!
Are you loving our Monday article series almost as much as the other epic content on our blog? If you think this kind of article is what your traders or investors are crying out for, don’t waste any time, contact us today!
Speak soon,
The Contentworks Team
