Equities Focus

Several equity research houses have upgraded their recommendations on Snap Inc. Class A shares. They expect the social media giant to outperform, assigning a target price of $20, up from $16, on 9th January. According to sources, 10% of ad buyers are using Snapchat to start a new branding campaigns, with this figure looking to rise in the coming year. Share price up 23% in the past 30 days and climbed 179% in the past 52 weeks.

Verizon recently announced that their Fios video and internet service would abandon locking customers into long-term bundled packages. Their new Mix & Match model comes as an attempt to retain customers that are opting for non-cable forms of entertainment, i.e. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Now etc. Share price down 4% in the past 30 days.

Twitter have implemented a new way to combat internet trolls by allowing selective replies to tweets on their platform – a feature that has long been anticipated. Among big tech communications stocks Twitter have also been less expensive relative to earnings estimates than they were a year ago. Share price up 11% in the past 30 days and have remained flat over the past 52 weeks.

Dutch food ordering company Takeaway.com said on 9th February that they had approved plans for the £5.9bn acquisition of Just Eat Plc. 80.4% of Just Eat shareholders had agreed to the latest all-share offer. The combined firm will have 23 subsidiaries, mostly in Europe but also in Canada, Australia and Latin America. Share price up 15% in the past 30 days and climbed 43% in the past 52 weeks.

Industry regulator Ofcom are proposing new rules and incentives for BT’s Openreach unit in order to increase the speed of fiber-optic roll-out across the UK. In other news the post UK general election share price gains have receded. BT are struggling to compete with younger, more agile peers, who are rapidly eating into BT’s share in broadband, paytv and telecoms markets. Share prices rose 2.2.% in the past 30 days but have declined 17% in the past 52 weeks.