Twitter loses quarter of market value after poor results ‘leaked’

Twitter lost more than a quarter of its value on Tuesday night after the social network’s financial results were “leaked” while stock markets were still open.

The US company’s shares fell as much as 26pc after it was forced to confirm poor first-quarter figures an hour early, following a data firm’s decision to post them on Twitter.

Selerity used the social network to reveal that revenues of $436m in the first three months of the year missed analyst estimates of $456.5m. The number of users accessing Twitter on mobile devices every month also missed expectations, with a figure of 241.6m falling short of the predicted 243m.

As a result, Twitter’s shares fell by around 7pc, causing the company to halt trading and officially release the figures.

It confirmed Selerity’s tweets but added that it expected revenues to be between $470m and $485m in the second quarter, missing analyst projections of $538.1m by a big margin.

Full-year guidance was cut to between $2.17bn and $2.27bn, from the previous range of $2.3bn to $2.35bn.

The shares slumped to $38.38 when they started trading again before closing down 18.18pc at $42.27, valuing the company at $27.6bn.

The shares were placed under short sell restrictions, meaning short-sellers were banned from driving the stock down further to make a profit.

Twitter, led by chief executive Dick Costolo, said the results were leaked and it is investigating the matter.

“We asked @nyse to halt trading once we discovered our Q1 earnings numbers had leaked, and published our results as soon as possible. We are investigating the source of the leak,” it tweeted.

Source: Telegraph