JUMP REPORT

Dow Jones futures were in focus late Tuesday, as the coronavirus stimulus deadline looms. Netflix and Snap reported earnings.

Snap reported its second adjusted profit in the company’s life as a public company, beating Wall Street sales expectations by over $100 million. Credit a rebound in ad spending.

Shares of Snap Inc. surged in after-hours trading Tuesday after the company crushed expectations for revenue and user growth while posting a surprise adjusted profit.

(Bloomberg) — Snap Inc. surged more than 20% after the social-media company reported quarterly revenue and user growth that topped estimates, lifted by advertisers’ stepped-up spending and consumers’ increased use of their phones for messaging and entertainment during the pandemic.The company, which makes the popular Snapchat mobile app for sending disappearing photos and videos, said third-quarter sales rose 52% to $678.7 million, far exceeding the $559.2 million average analyst estimate. Snapchat had 249 million daily active users in the quarter, compared with the 244.6 million average projection in a Bloomberg survey.Features on Snapchat that originally seemed like they were just for fun — like animated overlays on photos and videos — are becoming increasingly serious tools for advertising and communication as the Covid-19 outbreak limits in-person interactions. Although Snap had previously warned that the pandemic would curb revenue from fall-season advertising opportunities, such as movie launches and back-to school sales, those slowdowns never happened. A lag in TV production only meant more people tuning into Snapchat’s in-app shows, the company said.“If people are not seeing each other on a daily basis, they’re relying on these tools to communicate more every day,” said Ron Josey, an analyst at JMP Securities, in remarks before the results were released. It didn’t hurt that Snapchat has dodged the political scrutiny hitting its social-media competitors, he said. “The negative headlines around TikTok and Facebook I imagine have benefited Snap.”In the third quarter, civil rights groups successfully encouraged hundreds of consumer brands to temporarily boycott advertising on Facebook Inc., the largest social network, over its handling of offensive content and hate speech. The Trump administration also threatened a ban and mandated a sales process for the U.S. operations of TikTok, the video app that’s competing with Snapchat for time and attention among young people. Both actions forced advertisers to re-evaluate how they were spending their money on social media.Shares of Santa Monica, California-based Snap climbed as high as $34.88 in extended trading, on course for a record high, after closing at $28.45 in New York. The stock is up 74% so far this year.In the third quarter, Snap’s net loss narrowed to $200 million, or 14 cents a share. Excluding some costs, the company had a 1-cent per-share profit, compared with the 5-cent loss analysts predicted.The company that said if the positive advertising trends continue, fourth-quarter revenue may jump 47% to 50% from the same period a year earlier. That estimate assumes “that the holiday season materializes in line with what we have experienced in prior years,” Chief Financial Officer Derek Andersen said in his prepared remarks. “It is not clear at this time whether that key source of advertising demand will materialize in the same way this year.”Analysts on average were projecting a fourth-quarter sales gain of 30% to $730.3 million, according to a poll by Bloomberg.(Updates with details on shares, outlook in final paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Snap (SNAP) delivered earnings and revenue surprises of 116.67% and 23.25%, respectively, for the quarter ended September 2020. Do the numbers hold clues to what lies ahead for the stock?