Options selling with Christian
Growth Investor, Options Selling, Creator of Stock Catalysts
Snap is an easy pass: its new Specs AR glasses look goofy, the shiny reflective coating makes them worse, and management doesn't care because it was already paid through stock compensation and salary for creating the product. x.com
Snap has been treated like an ATM by CEO Evan Spiegel, with no operating income a decade after going public. Its Specs glasses are unlikely to sell at meaningful scale for $2,200 each, and Snap badly needs executives capable of saying no to clearly horrible ideas. x.com x.com x.com
Snap's Spectacles cannot deliver meaningful commercial value within five years, making a funding partner essential to avoid years of cash burn. At best, they are a prototype, with zero chance of profitability in the next couple of years; the glasses will never sell at the scale needed to make a difference. Without a partner, Snap stock is dead money. Even so, Snap remains a good asymmetric bet on Evan Spiegel changing course, with little downside from here if he does not. x.com x.com x.com x.com
Snap is a weak company because of CEO Evan Spiegel's product judgment. Its new Specs AR glasses, shown publicly for the first time, look so unappealing that they may be the first product ever to launch and not sell a single unit. x.com x.com
Snap is undervalued, but management burning $4B+ on Specs is the biggest problem. At $2,000+ a pair, Specs are unlikely to go mass market: even 20M pairs, $40B of revenue and $10B of profit would be only a 150% ROI over 12 years, with under 1% odds of happening. Most shareholders would rather see $12-15B of revenue at 40% EBITDA margins with fewer employees and less dilution; Meta built a $1 trillion company on apps before spending on hardware. x.com x.com x.com x.com
Snap's core business is priced like a cyclical commodity company, with its Specs AR glasses thrown in nearly free. Revenue grew from $4.6 billion in 2023 to $5.9 billion in 2025 and free cash flow from $35 million to $437 million, and management aims to keep the diluted share count stable from 2027. Valuing Specs at about $1 billion leaves core Snap at roughly 7.3x trailing and 5.1x 2027 EV/EBITDA. Better-than-feared Specs teasers and Meta's AR push make the setup asymmetric. x.com
Snap is not investable until at least a change in management. Per @HatedMoats, Meta and Google have tried to buy Snap for years, even at 3x its value, and been refused each time. The CEO, who owns about 10%, should take a sale at the right price, such as $30B, or risk being left with nothing. x.com
Snap's smart glasses will likely only hurt its core business. Unlike Meta, Snap cannot afford to invest billions in bets that may never pay off, and Meta should end up with a near-monopoly on smart glasses. x.com
Snap as a whole trades around a $10 billion valuation, half the $20 billion floated for a stake in its Specs AR unit, so buying the entire company effectively gets the ad business for free. x.com
Snap's smart glasses will not rescue the stock, because nobody is going to buy the glasses or the shares. x.com