On a day when the rest of the market bled, Twitter shares enjoyed a rare rebound into the black because of speculation that News Corp. might take a stake or bid on the company.
Rupert Murdoch’s media giant denied that speculation, but not before Twitter shares jumped as much as 14 percent to $19.04. They retreated after the company quashed the rumor, but still managed to close up 4.1 pecent at $17.38 Tuesday. Twitter shares have had only one other day in the black so far this year, and have declined 27 percent in 2016.
News Corp. spokesman Jim Kennedy confirmed to TheWrap that the company has no stake nor a bid on Twitter.
Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst with Rosenblatt, said Twitter still has a lot of opportunity but has failed at capturing it recently. He doesn’t see it as an attractive target to big tech names that could build Twitter-like services of their own. But he said traditional media companies could find it to be an interesting property for a variety of reasons, like digital distribution of their content.
However, he doubted newly reinstalled CEO Jack Dorsey went through the travails of returning to the company he founded “to have a couple good quarters and then sell it in the open market.”