- Upbeat notes from RBC and Wedbush have helped Twitter (TWTR +1.2%) close higher on a brutal day for equities. The performance comes two days ahead of Twitter's first earnings report as a public company.
- RBC's Mark Mahaney (Outperform) calls Twitter's Q4 consensus "achievable," and respectively forecasts Y/Y ad sales and monthly active user growth of 121% and 38%. He adds a monthly ad survey was positive - 40% of respondents said they upped their Twitter ad spend over the last 6 months, and 60% expect to do it over the next year - and thinks Facebook's strong Q4 results are "broadly positive" for Twitter (investors seemed to agree).
- Cantor's Youssef Squali, while reiterating a Sell, also expects strong Q4 results. He suspects Twitter (70% of Q3 ad revenue from mobile) is benefiting from mobile momentum similar to Facebook's.
- Meanwhile, Twitter is continuing its data-licensing efforts in the wake of last week's CNN/Dataminr deal. The company is partnering with music industry firm 300 Entertainment uncover music-related insights from its data firehose.
- Also: Though it's not working directly with Twitter, Thomson Reuters (NYSE:TRI) is now including including Twitter sentiment analysis in its Eikon market analysis/trading platform.