Architect of Alpha
Long-Term Stock Investor
Reddit is well placed as the source every AI model wants to license training data from, while its ad revenue booms. Q2 revenue rose 61% to $804.9 million, operating income more than tripled to $231.7 million and net income reached $252.8 million. At about 17 times two-year forward earnings, the stock isn't expensive. x.com x.com
Reddit's human conversations are gaining value as AI content proliferates, supporting advertiser spending and AI data licensing. Revenue grew 61% last quarter, with margins in the 40s, but US user growth slowed to 6%. Advertisers are paying more each quarter and AI labs pay for Reddit's data. Overweight; $200 target. x.com
Reddit still looks undervalued as Needham's Q3 traffic tracker shows app downloads up 19% and web visitors up 2-3% quarter over quarter, adding to strong alternative data behind an expected Q3 beat and raise. Shares trade at 18x next-twelve-month EPS while revenue is growing 60-65% and EPS 65-70% year over year; new Anthropic, OpenAI or Gemini licensing deals remain possible over the next couple of months, not secured. x.com
Reddit's worsening US user growth threatens its revenue runway despite elite ARPU growth, revenue growth and margin expansion. US daily users fell 2% year over year and missed estimates by 7%; the Q4 guide was weak. It needs healthier user growth in its most important market to dispel Google/AI discovery fears. Forward indicators do not look promising, and the trend of positive estimate revisions will end. x.com x.com
Reddit's logged-in users drive monetization, so weak search-driven traffic matters less than ARPU. Reddit says app and logged-in users grew sequentially in Q3 and generate over 80% of monetization, though lost search referrals also hurt them. ARPU rose 53% despite barely higher users; a low ad base could allow it to double even with muted growth. Restricting Google scraping might force a licensing deal that helps its Anthropic case and OpenAI renewal, though no deal is certain. x.com x.com x.com … Show more
Reddit's post-earnings selloff is an overreaction, as the market treats it like a 2010s media publisher rather than an AI data utility. If Google's AI Overviews surface Reddit answers instead of sending clicks, that strengthens Reddit's leverage by proving LLMs cannot work without its 26B+ posts of human consensus. In-app retention is up 50% year over year, so the SEO-dependency panic is overstated. Flat licensing deals are phase one; the endgame is usage-based pricing for real-time AI context. … Show more
Reddit's Q3 drop in US daily users risks another poor market reaction, even if headline earnings are strong. Last quarter a slight sequential decline in US daily users sent the shares down 20% despite a massive triple beat; the new chart shows a further sequential drop in Q3. x.com x.com
Reddit's AI licensing is the wildcard that could make the stock run, as the market may have grown too negative on its renewals with Google and OpenAI. AI models need fresh human-generated data, and Reddit's is still undervalued. Revenue grew 61% last quarter, ad revenue 64%, and margins keep improving. Per BofA, Reddit should post the highest US and international ARPU growth of the social stocks it follows in Q3. Trading below the 200-day average is a risk, with support at $120-135. x.com x.com
Reddit's US ARPU growth is more impressive than the market credits. It rose 40% since March to $14 per quarter, while trailing free cash flow reached about $1.2B in September. The US daily-user chart is less flattering. x.com x.com
Reddit may face short-term pressure after Morgan Stanley cut its price target from $240 to $210 while keeping Overweight, adding risk premium for possibly slowing user growth and shifting Google traffic, especially AI Overviews reducing referrals. Morgan Stanley stays positive on revenue and EPS growth, and advertising, AI data licensing and Reddit Max remain long-term catalysts. Renewed strength in Google traffic and DAU/WAU growth could bring the target back up. x.com
Reddit's pullback below $150 on insider-selling headlines is not a fundamental shift, as monetization is accelerating faster than user growth. Q1 2026 revenue grew 69% to $663 million with $204 million of net income, a 31% margin, and EPS of $1.01 was 7x a year earlier. Daily active users rose 17% to 126.8 million while ARPU jumped 44% to $5.23. AI data licensing deals with Google and OpenAI are a higher-margin second engine, projected to reach $400 million a year by 2027. x.com
