What Crash? Snap Shares Rocket 8 Percent as Lockup Period Expires

Snap is headed for its best day since going public in March

When it comes to Snap Inc. — parent company of messaging app Snapchat — cue Matthew McConaughey in “Wolf of Wall Street“: “Nobody knows if a stock is gonna go up, down, sideways or in f—–g circles, least of all stockbrokers.”

Shares of Snap are running in early trading on Monday, shooting up by 8 percent to about $12.80 a share on the same day hundreds of millions of shares became available for trading. Snap’s lockup period — preventing early investors from moving shares — wrapped up a few weeks ago, but due to a blackout period before its second quarter report last week, didn’t go into effect until Monday.

JP Morgan estimated 782 million shares of Snap became available to trade on Monday, including nearly 200 million shares owned by employees. After Snap took a beating last week following a second straight unimpressive quarterly report, Wall Street analysts had been warning the pain could continue as shareholders looked to cash out on their investment. That hasn’t happened.

Instead, Snap is poised for its best day since going public in March.

There isn’t much to point to as a catalyst for Monday’s rally. Snapchat just added a Pikachu filter for a limited amount of time, but that’s not going to make investors shell out (just ask the dancing hot dog and its 1.5 billion views). To assuage shareholder fears, CEO Evan Spiegel said on its earnings call last week he and Chief Tech Officer Bobby Murphy wouldn’t sell shares for one year.

Still, the influx of available shares hasn’t caused Snap to crater, as many had expected following its double digit drop last week. With Snap trading near its all-time low, employees and early investors don’t appear ready to wave the white flag just yet.

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