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在纽约交易所推行此次上市计划的前几天，IPO公司将自身的股价提高到23至25美金，高于初期目标的17美元—20美元。推特公司及其（担保行的）银行家们暗示称该股票的强劲需求为其股价范围增长提供了依据。然而此次变动意味着投资者们需更加地谨慎对待购买该公司的股票，推特公司的市值将达到136亿美元。
我们不用怀疑，IPO公司的目前的市场是非常好的。许多公司都提高了他们原始的股票价格。同样，可以肯定的是，推特在其用户规模（约2.3亿用户每月平均访问一次）和盈利两方面都增长迅速。但是，正如我们上周那期文章指出的那样，还是有很好的理由去顾虑该公司股价被高估的。
当推行到13.6亿美金的评估值时，12个月的市场总值粗略的计算比率约为26，甚至比Facebook和LinkedIn上市时还要高。然而，推特还忸怩作态地称其广告机器将如何产生数十亿美元的未来收益，用以证明这么高的倍数是对的。Triton Research公司研究私企的Rett Wallace指出，比起如LinkedIn公司2011年上市时做的那样，推特公司在其监管文件里远未提供足够的销售活动信息。
JUST a few days ahead of its planned initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange, Twitter has raised the price range for its shares to $23 to $25, up from the original target of $17 to $20. The microblogging service and its bankers have hinted that strong demand for its stock justifies the increase. But the move, which could value the company at up to $13.6 billion, means that investors should be even more wary of taking a flutter on the firm’s stock.
True, the IPO market is hot right now, with quite a number of firms raising their initial price targets. True, too, Twitter has increased fast both the size of its audience (some 230m people visit it on average at least once a month) and its revenues. But, as we noted in last week’s issue, there are good reasons to think the firm’s shares will be overpriced.
At a valuation of $13.6 billion, Twitter would have a market capitalisation-to-trailing-12-month sales ratio of roughly 26, which is higher even than those of Facebook and LinkedIn when they went public. Yet Twitter has been coy about how exactly its advertising machine will be able to generate the billions of dollars of future revenues to justify such a lofty multiple. Rett Wallace of Triton Research, which analyses private companies, points out that Twitter has provided far less granular information about its sales activities in its regulatory filings than, say, LinkedIn did when it went public in 2011.
Those who think Twitter’s share price will soar over the long term point out that it hasn’t increased the number of shares it intends to offer and that its existing owners with big stakes aren’t cashing out en masse in the IPO. Both of these things, they say, should reassure nervous punters who fear a re-run of Facebook's IPO. The giant social network's share price plummeted following its debut on the stockmarket and it was many months before it rose above the initial $38 offer price again.
But one thoughful estimate published on the same day that Twitter increased its price range concluded that the firm is in fact worth no more than $17 to $18 a share. BIA Kelsey, which analyses advertising markets and firms operating in them, says that Twitter faces some very big challenges just to get to the $5 billion of revenue a year it will need to generate by 2020 to justify a share price today of $17. Among other things, it notes that Twitter’s growth in America is slowing and that it is generating far less revenue from foreign users, who account for about four-fifths of its audience. Perhaps the hype around the IPO market right now will still make Twitter’s shares fly in the short-term. But they are unlikely to stay aloft for long.
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