Why Snap And Pinterest Shares Are Moving Lower Thursday

Shares of social media companies including Snap Inc SNAP and Pinterest Inc PINS were down early Thursday in sympathy with Meta Platforms Inc META, which fell after reporting first-quarter financial results.

What Happened: Meta beat analyst estimates on the top and bottom lines, reporting first-quarter revenue of $36.455 billion versus estimates of $36.156 billion and EPS of $4.71 versus estimates of $4.33, per Benzinga Pro.

"It's been a good start to the year. The new version of Meta AI with Llama 3 is another step towards building the world's leading AI. We're seeing healthy growth across our apps and we continue making steady progress building the metaverse as well," said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta.

Although the company beat analyst estimates across the board, Meta shares are selling off, likely due to the company’s guidance. 

Meta said it expects second-quarter revenue to be in the range of $36.5 billion to $39 billion versus estimates of $38.3 billion. 

The company raised its expense outlook for the year from a range of $94 billion to $99 billion to a new range of $96 billion to $99 billion. Meta also raised its capital expenditures forecast from a range of $30 billion to $37 billion to a new range of $35 billion to $40 billion as the company continues to accelerate its infrastructure investments to support its AI roadmap.

“While we are not providing guidance for years beyond 2024, we expect capital expenditures will continue to increase next year as we invest aggressively to support our ambitious AI research and product development efforts,” the company said.

Meta also noted that it expects operating losses to “increase meaningfully” year-over-year for its Reality Labs division.

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What’s Next: Meta, Snap and Pinterest all operate social media platforms. Snap is due to report its first-quarter results after the market close on Thursday. The company is expected to report a loss of 5 cents per share and revenue of $1.119 billion, according to estimates from Benzinga Pro.

Pinterest is scheduled to report next week on April 30. Analysts expect the idea discovery platform company to report earnings of 13 cents per share on revenue of $699.872 million.

SNAP, PINS Price Action: The social media stocks pared losses Thursday morning. At publication time, Snap shares were down 0.4% at $11.04 and Pinterest shares were down 1.68% at $32.30, per Benzinga Pro.

Photo: Sergei Elagin from Shutterstock.