Facebook’s rebrand to Meta announced in October pushed the metaverse into public consciousness seemingly overnight.
Since then, corporations big and small have been trying to capitalize on the buzz by announcing initiatives meant to broaden their businesses into the future of the internet, often described interchangeably with metaverse as Web3.
In a note published this month, Morgan Stanley analysts led by Brian Nowak predicted the metaverse will see a total addressable market of over $8 trillion, which includes real estate, core retail spend, autos, games, music, and restaurants.
“The addressable US consumer expenditure to monetize is large,” the analysts said in a note last week.
And while the full metaverse adoption will be gradual, the analysts believe that “current digital media and e-commerce consumer offerings have never been more robust and are continually improving.”
They also pointed to the average time American daily users spend consuming digital media, which now stands at almost 11 billion days per year. “These are metaverse hours to capture,” they said.
Facebook, which the bank rates as overweight, is the most obvious stock to invest in, the analysts said.
“We remain positive FB primarily because of the still under-appreciated core business growth durability and free cash flow into 2022,” they said despite the firm’s estimated $13.6 billion investment in the metaverse in 2022.”
“The extent to which FB has any success in building/monetizing a metaverse is all upside and would be another layer-cake of multi-year monetization,” they added.
Here are four other stocks that stand to benefit from the metaverse revolution, according to Morgan Stanley.
1. Roblox, overweight
The analysts point to the advertising, sponsorship, and e-commerce opportunities for Roblox to better monetize its already highly engaged users. For now, each user spends an average of 156 minutes or almost three hours per day, multiplied by the 47 million daily active user base.
“Like FB, what we like most about RBLX is that the core growth and monetization algorithms (aging up, global growth, in-app spend) also remain strong.”
2. Google, overweight
Google has leading traffic, compute power, engineering talent, and a growing focus on augmented reality, the analysts said. “If we believe in next generational platforms, they should not be dismissed.”
3. Snap, overweight
Meanwhile, the analysts consider Snap a leader in augmented reality. “The extent to which augmented reality technologies are important in the metaverse could highlight value here,” they added.
Snap, they said, continues to expand its use cases beyond core Snap, including Discover, Spotlight, and Maps. “We see SNAP ad revenue growing as its engaged and millennial audience is attractive to advertisers,” they noted.
4. Unity Software, evenweight
As the most widely used engine in the video game industry, Unity Software is “uniquely positioned to enable the creation of 3D interactive content across a range of use cases,” the analysts said.
“We see the engine as the beneficiary of a long-term secular adoption trend inside the video game industry, while the ad network could benefit from recent privacy changes in the mobile ad ecosystem.”
Mark Zuckerberg showing his ‘metaverse’ avatar during Connect 2021.
Facebook
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is spending billions every year in an attempt to create “the metaverse.”
Its main competition, the company said, is from Microsoft, Sony, Apple, Epic Games, and Google.
The “metaverse” concept that Meta is pursuing is similar to online gaming worlds, with 3D avatars.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is investing $10 billion this year alone in creating “the metaverse.” In the coming years, the company expects to increase that investment.
Though no such market for a “metaverse” exists just yet, Meta is already sizing up the competition: “As we invest in the metaverse, we know that we face fierce competition from companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Snap, Sony, Roblox, Epic, and many others at every step of this journey,” the company said in a statement to Vox this week.
It’s no surprise that Meta is eyeing the biggest players in tech and video games given its goal of creating a virtual shared space, as depicted by Mark Zuckerberg in a presentation last month.
In the video, Zuckerberg laid out the company’s vision for a future where people don headsets and become virtual avatars in a virtual space shared by people around the world.
“We believe the metaverse will be the successor to the mobile internet,” Zuckerberg said. “We’ll be able to feel present, like we’re right there with people, no matter how far apart we actually are.”
He went on to show a variety of examples of this future virtual world, with everything from virtual board games to virtual board meetings.
It’s a vision of the future that resembles modern online gaming worlds going back decades, from “Second Life” to “World of Warcraft” to VR chatroom apps. As such, it’s no surprise that Zuckerberg sees the likes of Sony, which makes PlayStation, and Microsoft, which makes Xbox, as part of the group posing “fierce competition” in the still non-existent metaverse marketplace.
Got a tip? Contact Insider senior correspondent Ben Gilbert via email (bgilbert@insider.com), or Twitter DM (@realbengilbert). We can keep sources anonymous. Use a non-work device to reach out. PR pitches by email only, please.
Business Insider analyzed salary data for workers at top tech companies.
SrdjanPav/Getty Images
Business Insider analyzed salary data for thousands of workers to reveal how much large tech companies pay.
We crunched the numbers for companies including Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Snap, and Uber.
The data, which US companies report in visa applications for foreign workers, sheds light on how engineers, designers, and others are compensated in the competitive industry.
Big US technology companies have powered their way through the pandemic, posting impressive growth, minting money, and hiring rapidly.
In early July, the tech-industry association CompTIA reported that the sector experienced job growth in 10 out of the previous 12 months – a standout performance given the lockdowns last year. Tech firms added more than 80,000 workers in the US through the first half of 2021, it added.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, hired more than 4,000 employees in the second quarter alone. Overall, more than 300,000 open tech jobs were posted in June, with software and app developers, IT-support specialists and project managers, systems engineers and architects, and systems analysts in highest demand. Jobs in emerging tech, such as AI, accounted for more than a quarter of open positions.
Companies are required to disclose information including salary (or, in some cases, salary ranges) when they hire foreign workers under the H1-B visa program, giving insight into what these tech giants are willing to shell out for talent.
So, to get a sense of what salaries in the industry are like these days, Business Insider analyzed the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification’s disclosure data for permanent and temporary foreign workers to find out what companies pay employees in key roles, including engineers, designers, and salespeople.
Google’s software engineers can make more than $300,000.Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Google is often touted as one of the best places to work, with compensation to match.
A software engineer was offered $353,000, a vice president of engineering can get $475,000, and a senior vice president recently took in an annual salary of $650,000.
The company’s Cloud business has been aggressively building out its workforce as it tries to catch its larger cloud rivals Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
Insider reviewed more than 200 H-1B visas that Amazon’s cloud unit applied for from January to June to reveal how much it paid software developers, data scientists, marketers, salespeople, business analysts, and more. The highest-paid employees, according to that data, can make as much as $185,000 in base salary.
Senior marketing jobs at Apple can pay up to $325,000.
Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Roy Rochlin/WireImage/Getty Images
Apple’s advertising is legendary, and its broader marketing efforts are integral to the company’s success. The iPhone maker regularly gets attention for its cinematic campaigns.
The company sponsors visas for a range of well-paid marketing jobs. One marketing manager makes $240,000, while a marketing senior director earns $325,000.
A Facebook engineering director can make roughly $360,000
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg
Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Vanity Fair
Facebook employees consistently make well into the six figures. An in-house ad-agency director hired in the past year earns a salary of just over $330,000. An engineering director makes roughly $360,000.
Pay depends on the job, of course, but increasingly on where the worker is based, too. A data analyst in California, for example, makes $130,000 to $150,000 a year. One data analyst in Texas makes $128,000, and another $111,000. A software engineer in New York makes $160,000. One in Rhode Island and another in Texas make $118,000 a year.
Microsoft’s highest-paying jobs include software engineers, sales managers, and researchers.
Employees at Microsoft.
Bryan Thomas/Getty Images
We analyzed Microsoft’s more than 1,400 active foreign-worker visas in 2020 to find the titles with the highest salaries and provided a salary range for each role.
We focused this list on roles that pay $175,000 or more at the high end of the range and categorized them based on information we found in job postings. The highest salary we found, for a channel sales manager, was $250,000.
In internal Microsoft surveys obtained by Business Insider, 55% of staff said in 2020 that their combined salary, bonus, and equity was competitive with similar jobs at other companies, down from 65% in 2017.
Uber competes with the biggest Silicon Valley companies, and its salaries show that.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Uber
Though Uber has gone through rounds of job cuts in recent years, its compensation for many full-time positions is competitive with the biggest Silicon Valley tech firms.
Senior engineers can earn salaries of well over $200,000, while data scientists can pull in almost $150,000 and senior product managers can make about $190,000 or more, excluding any equity or bonus.
Business Insider analyzed the 241 H-1B visas IBM applied for since January to find out what it pays engineers, business analysts and consultants, digital strategists, and more. The highest-paid IBM employees can make as much as $335,000 in base salary, according to that data.
A senior manager of software engineering at Salesforce is paid more than $215,000.
Employees outside the Salesforce Tower.
Noam Galai/Contributor/Getty Images
Salesforce is embracing a hybrid mindset, giving employees the option to work remotely part time, and it expects to increase its number of permanently remote workers, too.
Insider analyzed the 206 H-1B visas Salesforce applied for from January to March to find out how much it paid workers in areas like engineering, data analytics, and product management. Software engineers can make more than $200,000 in salary, the data showed.
Snap offers base salaries ranging from $59,000 to $500,000.
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel.
Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch
Snap, the company behind Snapchat, has had a growth spurt. And it’s been staffing up to support ambitions in areas like augmented reality, short-form video, and original shows. The company now has about 4,000 employees in 15 countries.
Snap said in May that it was committed to paying all employees a livable wage that “contributes to healthy work-life integration and to the local economy in which we work.” It offers a minimum of $15,000 in equity grants to new hires and said its baseline annual pay rate for employees at its headquarters in Santa Monica is $70,000.
In late 2020 and 2021, Snap offered annual base salaries ranging from $59,000 to $500,000 for various roles, according to data from H-1B visa applications analyzed by Business Insider.
Waymo pays $122,000 to $300,000, depending on the type of job and location.
Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana and UiPath CEO Daniel Dines.
Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images/Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty
Few industries are blowing up like artificial intelligence and big data. PitchBook estimated that spending on AI software and hardware would reach $138 billion this year and grow at a rate of 23% in the next three years.
All that investment fuels an equally explosive jobs market. The job-search site ZipRecruiter showed more than 60,000 AI-engineer jobs listed. Those roles pay very well, with annual compensation as high as $304,500.
Business Insider analyzed US visa-application data from the first quarter of 2021 for permanent and temporary foreign workers to find out what 10 top AI companies pay engineers, researchers, and other professionals in the field of big data and machine learning.
Waymo relies heavily on AI to train the software that controls its autonomous vehicles. The Alphabet unit pays $122,000 to $300,000, depending on the type of job and location, according to the data.
Advertising and related services employed 447,300 workers in August, up 3.2% from a year ago, according to BLS data.
Companies also hire a lot of people from abroad. They’re required to disclose information including salary or salary ranges when they hire people under the H1-B visa program, giving insight into what companies are willing to pay for experts.
Insider rounded up its reporting on what some of the hottest companies pay for marketing and advertising roles by analyzing government data for 2020 and 2021 that companies are required to file for visa-holding employees.
Snap marketing and sales staff pay can reach $110,000 per year
Snap, the company behind Snapchat, has been on a growth tear in recent months. It’s been staffing up as it tries to take on competitors in areas like augmented reality, short-form video, and original shows.
It’s offered staffers in marketing and sales roles like account executive base salaries between $78,000 and $110,000 per year.
Spotify pays marketers $95,000 to $190,000 in base salary
Spotify has become the podcast home to heavy hitters including the Obamas and Joe Rogan, and it’s been steadily hiring as it grows its podcast ambitions.
Spotify offered staffers on US work visas in marketing roles annual base salaries between $94,000 and $190,000. The positions included associate director, corporate development, $185,000; and global agency lead, $157,000.
Netflix’s resilience despite the pandemic and rising competition has helped make it one of the most desirable places to work in tech.
The streamer has been hiring around the world for a variety of positions, from marketers in Seoul to animation roles in Los Angeles. Unlike other tech companies, it doesn’t pay performance bonuses, but pays high salaries instead.
Netflix offered staffers on US work visas in marketing roles annual base salaries ranging from $193,000 and $330,000 per year. They included $193,066 for a manager of brand partnerships and $210,000 for a marketing operations manager.
Creative directors are among the highest paid roles at ad holding companies like WPP
The ad industry went through a major contraction in 2020, with revenue at the major holding companies down by double-digits.
Yet as client spending returns, the biggest agencies are looking for executives to fill top positions like heads of new business, managing directors, and healthcare and ecommerce specialists.
WPP paid healthcare executives $178,000 and top creative leaders up to $880,000, while Dentsu’s Merkle agency awarded paid search managers $90,000 to $135,000, for example.
PR specialists are some of the industry’s top payers
The public relations industry resumed hiring as the industry bounces back from the pandemic. Firms are ramping up recruitment in hot areas like data, crisis management, and healthcare consulting.
Edelman, the biggest PR firm by revenue, paid an associate data scientist $98,363 and VP, technology media specialists $135,000 to $155,000.
Healthcare is in demand, and salaries show it. WPP’s BCW paid an SVP, strategy and development for healthcare $178,000.
Consulting firms with PR specialty divisions offer some of the industry’s top-paying jobs. A VP at Teneo, for example, can make $205,000 to $215,000.
Technology giants like Facebook, Google, Amazon, Uber, and Airbnb have soared in recent years, thanks in part to their marketing.
Apple is well known for its advertising. It has a dedicated ad agency at Omnicom that handles most of its advertising, and it regularly gets attention for its cinematic campaigns.
Apple also has its own advertising staff, from art directors to design and creative directors.
Intel’s growth has been slowing as it faces growing competition, but its new CEO is trying to turn things around.
It announced plans to invest $20 billion in new factories in Arizona, it’s investing in research and development, and is racing against other tech giants like IBM, Microsoft, and Google to build quantum computers, among other moves.
For all of this, Intel relies on marketers as well as researchers, managers, and software and hardware engineers.
It paid marketing engineers in California $159,536-$229,960 while marketing engineers in Oregon made $110,032-$150,750, for example. Elsewhere, a marketing manager in California can expect a salary of between $124,413-$196,550.
Cybersecurity companies are hiring aggressively to fill a talent gap across the industry.
Most of the companies pay six-figure salaries for rank and file tech roles, with managers and executives making up to $350,000 in some cases, according to an Insider review of 24 major players.
Auth0 hired a head of content with a salary of $230,000, for example, while McAfee paid a marketing VP $230,006.
Business Insider analyzed salary data for workers at top tech companies.
SrdjanPav/Getty Images
Business Insider analyzed salary data for thousands of workers to reveal how much large tech companies pay.
We crunched the numbers for companies including Airbnb, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Snap, and Uber.
The data, which US companies report in visa applications for foreign workers, sheds light on how engineers, designers, and others are compensated in the competitive industry.
Big US technology companies have powered their way through the pandemic, posting impressive growth, minting money, and hiring rapidly.
In early July, the tech-industry association CompTIA reported that the sector experienced job growth in 10 out of the previous 12 months – a standout performance given the lockdowns last year. Tech firms added more than 80,000 workers in the US through the first half of 2021, it added.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, hired more than 4,000 employees in the second quarter alone. Overall, more than 300,000 open tech jobs were posted in June, with software and app developers, IT-support specialists and project managers, systems engineers and architects, and systems analysts in highest demand. Jobs in emerging tech, such as AI, accounted for more than a quarter of open positions.
Companies are required to disclose information including salary (or, in some cases, salary ranges) when they hire foreign workers under the H1-B visa program, giving insight into what these tech giants are willing to shell out for talent.
So, to get a sense of what salaries in the industry are like these days, Business Insider analyzed the US Office of Foreign Labor Certification’s disclosure data for permanent and temporary foreign workers to find out what companies pay employees in key roles, including engineers, designers, and salespeople.
Google’s software engineers can make more than $300,000.Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Google is often touted as one of the best places to work, with compensation to match.
A software engineer was offered $353,000, a vice president of engineering can get $475,000, and a senior vice president recently took in an annual salary of $650,000.
The company’s Cloud business has been aggressively building out its workforce as it tries to catch its larger cloud rivals Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
Insider reviewed more than 200 H-1B visas that Amazon’s cloud unit applied for from January to June to reveal how much it paid software developers, data scientists, marketers, salespeople, business analysts, and more. The highest-paid employees, according to that data, can make as much as $185,000 in base salary.
Senior marketing jobs at Apple can pay up to $325,000.
Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Roy Rochlin/WireImage/Getty Images
Apple’s advertising is legendary, and its broader marketing efforts are integral to the company’s success. The iPhone maker regularly gets attention for its cinematic campaigns.
The company sponsors visas for a range of well-paid marketing jobs. One marketing manager makes $240,000, while a marketing senior director earns $325,000.
Microsoft’s highest-paying jobs include software engineers, sales managers, and researchers.
Employees at Microsoft.
Bryan Thomas/Getty Images
We analyzed Microsoft’s more than 1,400 active foreign-worker visas in 2020 to find the titles with the highest salaries and provided a salary range for each role.
We focused this list on roles that pay $175,000 or more at the high end of the range and categorized them based on information we found in job postings. The highest salary we found, for a channel sales manager, was $250,000.
In internal Microsoft surveys obtained by Business Insider, 55% of staff said in 2020 that their combined salary, bonus, and equity was competitive with similar jobs at other companies, down from 65% in 2017.
Uber competes with the biggest Silicon Valley companies, and its salaries show that.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for Uber
Though Uber has gone through rounds of job cuts in recent years, its compensation for many full-time positions is competitive with the biggest Silicon Valley tech firms.
Senior engineers can earn salaries of well over $200,000, while data scientists can pull in almost $150,000 and senior product managers can make about $190,000 or more, excluding any equity or bonus.
Business Insider analyzed the 241 H-1B visas IBM applied for since January to find out what it pays engineers, business analysts and consultants, digital strategists, and more. The highest-paid IBM employees can make as much as $335,000 in base salary, according to that data.
A senior manager of software engineering at Salesforce is paid more than $215,000.
Employees outside the Salesforce Tower.
Noam Galai/Contributor/Getty Images
Salesforce is embracing a hybrid mindset, giving employees the option to work remotely part time, and it expects to increase its number of permanently remote workers, too.
Insider analyzed the 206 H-1B visas Salesforce applied for from January to March to find out how much it paid workers in areas like engineering, data analytics, and product management. Software engineers can make more than $200,000 in salary, the data showed.
Snap offers base salaries ranging from $59,000 to $500,000.
Snap CEO Evan Spiegel.
Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch
Snap, the company behind Snapchat, has had a growth spurt. And it’s been staffing up to support ambitions in areas like augmented reality, short-form video, and original shows. The company now has about 4,000 employees in 15 countries.
Snap said in May that it was committed to paying all employees a livable wage that “contributes to healthy work-life integration and to the local economy in which we work.” It offers a minimum of $15,000 in equity grants to new hires and said its baseline annual pay rate for employees at its headquarters in Santa Monica is $70,000.
In late 2020 and 2021, Snap offered annual base salaries ranging from $59,000 to $500,000 for various roles, according to data from H-1B visa applications analyzed by Business Insider.
Waymo pays $122,000 to $300,000, depending on the type of job and location.
Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana and UiPath CEO Daniel Dines.
Stefanie Keenan/Getty Images/Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty
Few industries are blowing up like artificial intelligence and big data. PitchBook estimated that spending on AI software and hardware would reach $138 billion this year and grow at a rate of 23% in the next three years.
All that investment fuels an equally explosive jobs market. The job-search site ZipRecruiter showed more than 60,000 AI-engineer jobs listed. Those roles pay very well, with annual compensation as high as $304,500.
Business Insider analyzed US visa-application data from the first quarter of 2021 for permanent and temporary foreign workers to find out what 10 top AI companies pay engineers, researchers, and other professionals in the field of big data and machine learning.
Waymo relies heavily on AI to train the software that controls its autonomous vehicles. The Alphabet unit pays $122,000 to $300,000, depending on the type of job and location, according to the data.
President Joe Biden speaks about prescription drug prices and his “Build Back Better” agenda from the East Room of the White House, Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Washington.
Associated Press/Evan Vucci
Biden is set to announce the largest-ever boost to food stamps on Monday, the NYT reports.
The average monthly benefit will rise to $157 per person from $121. That’s about 40 cents per meal.
A 15% boost to food stamps was set to lapse on September 30, but Biden’s move offsets that.
President Joe Biden is expected to announce the largest-ever boost to food stamps on Monday, permanently increasing aid for the roughly 42 million Americans on the program.
The average monthly benefit will climb to $157 per person from $121, The New York Times reported, citing an administration official. That translates to an increase of roughly 40 cents per meal. For a family of four, the maximum benefit will rise to $835 per month, up about 21% from the pre-pandemic limit.
The increase will take effect on October 1.
The move is one of the ways Biden can increase aid for Americans without Congressional approval. The Agriculture Department will increase payments through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by updating its list of foods needed for a healthy diet.
Biden’s increase ends a process that began in his first days in office. In a late January executive order, the president called on the USDA to review the Thrifty Food Plan, which includes the list of foods that determines SNAP payments. The administration argued the plan didn’t accurately reflect households’ nutritional and financial needs.
The food plan was originally set to be updated by 2022, but the Biden order sped up that process and is now set to bring higher benefits before the end of the year.
The fiscal cliff looms large
The announcement comes just weeks before enhanced SNAP benefits were set to lapse at the end of September. Congress approved a 15% supplement to the program at the end of last year, and Biden’s move will offset that boost’s expiration and leave SNAP beneficiaries with permanently higher payments.
The September deadline was part of a larger set of expirations known as the “fiscal cliff.” A slew of pandemic-era support programs was set to end in September, with Republicans arguing the economic recovery made such aid obsolete.
Some, like the freeze to student loan payments, were recently extended to avoid a sudden pullback in government support. Others, like the federal eviction moratorium, weren’t re-upped and have raised concerns around reversing aid while virus cases rebound. The Biden administration renewed some parts of the eviction ban in a last-ditch effort earlier in August, but legal battles risk canceling the extension.
The boost to food stamps hasn’t come without its share of backlash. Ranking members on the House and Senate Agriculture Committees asked the Government Accountability Office last week to review the White House’s process for updating the Thrifty Food Plan.
The administration will publish the results of its review soon and is prepared to brief lawmakers on the matter, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told Politico in a statement.
Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is hiring for hundreds of jobs in the US as the tech company expands into areas like augmented reality, short-form video, and original shows.
The growth spurt comes as Snap reported during the first quarter its highest year-over-year revenue and daily active user growth rates in three years.
We combed through public data to get a picture of Snap’s salary levels. The data, released by the US Department of Labor’s Office of Foreign Labor Certification, shows how much Snap offered to pay employees who it wanted to hire in the US through work visas.
Snap offered certain US staffers between October 2020 and March 2021 annual salaries ranging $59,000 to $500,000 for various roles, according to the data.
Snap said it’s committed to paying all employees a livable wage that “contributes to healthy work-life integration and to the local economy in which we work.” It offers a minimum of $15,000 in equity grants to new hires, and said its baseline annual pay rate for employees at its headquarters in Santa Monica is $70,000.
Our full analysis breaks down salaries for jobs including product, research, engineering, and marketing roles.
Robinhood has been the poster child of the commission-free trading movement that has drawn a new generation of investors into the stock market, and its user base skews heavily to Millennial and Gen Z investors. From iconic companies like Apple, to upstarts looking to disrupt whole industries, here are the top 50 stock picks among Robinhood users.
50. Workhorse
Workhorse
Workhorse
Workhorse, the Loveland, Ohio-based electric-vehicle maker, has become a retail favorite among other auto manufacturers, like Lordstown Motors and Canoo.
49. Boeing
Thomas Pallini/Insider
Thomas Pallini/Insider
Shares of the plane-maker have rallied more than 12% so far this year.
48. Zynga
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Ideanomics, a small company focused on sustainability, has rallied alongside other meme stocks like GameStop this year.
38. Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic
The space tourism company has been a focus among Reddit retail traders for months. Shares soared in May after the company announced its successful test flight.
37. FuelCell Energy
REUTERS/Hugh Gentry
REUTERS/Hugh Gentry
The Danbury, Connecticut-based company creates “clean, efficient and affordable fuel cell solutions,” according to its website.
36. AT&T
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
Brendan McDermid/Reuters
The media and telecommunications company based in Dallas is among retail-trader favorites on Robinhood.
35. Moderna
A physician injects someone with the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images
The Canadian cannabis company has seen a lot of Reddit hype as retail investors look to position themselves for the possibility of legalization in the US.
Shares of the social site have rallied about 35% so far this year.
22. Delta Airlines
A Delta Air Lines Airbus A320. Philip Pilosian/Shutterstock.com
Philip Pilosian/Shutterstock.com
The airline is among several others that struggled during the pandemic but has begun to rebound.
21. Churchill Capital Corp IV
Boonchai Wedmakawand/Getty Images
Boonchai Wedmakawand/Getty Images
Shares of the special-purpose acquisition company have nearly tripled in price since going public earlier this year.
20. Palantir
Palantir CEO Alex Karp. Photo by Julien Mattia/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Photo by Julien Mattia/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Palantir CEO Alex Karp said the surveillance company is a favorite stock pick because the company respects the intelligence of the retail-trading community.
19. GoPro
GoPro Inc’s founder and CEO Woodman holds a GoPro camera in his mouth as he celebrates GoPro Inc’s IPO at the Nasdaq Market Site in New York City. Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters
The maker of wearable cameras has rallied 38% so far this year.
18. Zomedica
Westend61/Getty Images
Westend61/Getty Images
The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based company is focused on helping meet the needs of veterinarians, according to its website.
17. GameStop
John Minchillo/AP
John Minchillo/AP
GameStop was recently added to the Russell 1000 Index, a list of the largest companies based on market capitalization, thanks to its epic rally pushed by retail investors.
16. Carnival
Sam Greenwood/Getty Images
Sam Greenwood/Getty Images
The cruise line industry shuttered amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but operators like Carnival are making a comeback as the pandemic recedes.
15. Aurora Cannabis
Alberta Cannabis Inc/Handout via REUTERS
Alberta Cannabis Inc/Handout via REUTERS
Aurora is another Canadia cannabis company that retail traders have flocked to amid excitement over potential legalization in the US.
14. Pfizer
Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
The pharmaceutical company has surged in popularity, largely thanks to the production of its COVID-19 vaccine.
13. Nokia
Reuters
Reuters
Nokia has been looped into the basket of meme-stocks, like GameStop and AMC, that have gripped retail-traders attention this year.
12. Plug Power
Photo by Wang Haizhou/Xinhua via Getty Images
Photo by Wang Haizhou/Xinhua via Getty Images
Plug Power, based in Latham, New York, is focused on creating hydrogen fuel cells to power vehicles.
11. American Airlines
American Airlines’ planes parked at a gate in Washington. Joshua Roberts/Reuters
Shares of the long-time company have been on the rise this year, rallying about 25%.
5. Ford
President Joe Biden drives the new electric Ford F-150 lightning at the Ford Dearborn Development Center in Dearborn, Michigan on May 18, 2021. Nicholas Kamm/Associated Press
Nicholas Kamm/Associated Press
The legacy automaker garnered attention earlier this year when President Joe Biden floored one of its electric trucks.
4. Sundial Growers
AP Photo/Steven Senne, File
AP Photo/Steven Senne, File
Sundial, among other Canadian cannabis companies, is a favorite among retail traders.
3. AMC Entertainment
Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
AMC Entertainment became a retail-trader favorite earlier this year, and led a rally in memes last month amid renewed interest in meme stocks.
2. Apple
Apple CEO Tim Cook. Karl Mondon/Digital First Media/The Mercury News via Getty Images
Karl Mondon/Digital First Media/The Mercury News via Getty Images
The iPhone maker is the most valuable company in the world with a market cap of more than $2 trillion.
1. Tesla
Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images
Tesla’s Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has captured retail-trader attention in both his company and in the realm of cryptocurrencies.
Snap shares were propelled higher Friday after the social media site turned in first-quarter financial results that surpassed Wall Street’s targets and set its sight on a jump in revenue.
The company late Thursday posted breakeven earnings per share on an adjusted basis compared with a loss of $0.06 per share in a consensus estimate from Refinitiv. A year ago, Snap lost $0.08 per share.
Revenue leapt by 66% to $769.6 million from $462.5 million a year earlier, beating analyst expectations of $743.8 million. The company said its active advertiser base about doubled from the year-ago period and that it delivered positive free cash flow for the first time as a public company.
Shares rose 6.6% to $60.80 early Friday. The stock has picked up about 14% this year and has more than tripled from $16 over the past 12 months.
Snap forecast second-quarter revenue of $820 million to $840 million, which would represent growth of 81% to 85% from $454 million in the year-ago period. Analysts, on average, currently anticipate $827 million.
In the first quarter, global daily active users rose by 51% to 280 million, higher than the Refinitiv estimate of 274.6 million users. Snap also said for the first time that the majority of its daily active users for the quarter were on the Android version of its app.
“We have a large opportunity to gain share of the global digital ad market, which is $340 billion and growing,” said Jeremi Gorman, Snap’s chief business officer, during the company’s earnings call. She said the company is focused on three priorities: investing in its ad platform, scaling its sales and marketing functions to support advertising partners worldwide, and building ad experiences through video and augmented reality.
Social platforms, especially over the past year, have been increasing focus on e-commerce, said Scott Kessler, global sector lead for technology, media and telecommunications at Third Bridge, in a note.
“The recent acquisition of Fit Analytics could help Snap in the fashion area, and ultimately challenge Pinterest, where the latter has had success with its “try on” feature in the beauty category,” he said.
Shannon Almeida and Priyanka Vazirani didn’t have any tech experience before they decided to create their own news app.
After working at a social startup on a campaign helping migrants at the border, they noticed how biased the mainstream media was. So the two decided to create an alternative.
Volv, which was founded in March 2020, is an antidote to traditional news apps, Almeida told Insider.
The app aims to create unbiased news in real-time and bills itself as “TikTok for news.”
It creates news stories, averaging at around 70 words, which users can read in less than nine seconds. The stories are listed in-app in a swipe format that’s easy on the eye. This is crucial to make the app attractive to its millennial target market, Vazirani said.
A post shared by Volv ☁️ (@volvmedia)
People in their teens and 20s often check their phones before they even get out of bed, logging into various apps to view the latest newsfeed updates. On Volv, users can scroll through and see all the major news stories at a glance.
In this way, the app can show people the top political and financial stories and covert non-news readers, while also offsetting heavy stories with lighter reads.
This approach is paying off. Volv publishes around 50 stories a day and its articles have been read nearly 8 million times so far. Its founders said it has a high retention rate, too.
A post shared by Volv ☁️ (@volvmedia)
Volv launched a week before the US went into lockdown but perhaps this was fortunate timing. People staying at home spend more time online. In addition, major news events have drawn readers in. This includes the Black Lives Matter movement, tumultuous 2020 presidential election, Capitol siege, and of course, the ongoing pandemic.
“It sort of pushed us in at the deep end,” Almeida told Insider.
Being unbiased is a key part of the app’s identity. Its founders also recently launched a feature called timeline news. This allows readers to get a broader view of the topic and understand how a story has developed, without moving away from the short-format feature.
Consumer angle
It has a team of fewer than 10 people – but it’s actively recruiting more so it can diversify its content.
Volv co-founders Shannon Almeida and Priyanka Vazirani.
Volv
Prior to launching the app, Almeida and Vazirani, emailed billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban on a whim for some advice. To their surprise, Cuban responded. He gave them tips on how to make the content more youthful and in sync with millennials. He also advised them on how to market the app and differentiate it from existing news sites.
Almeida and Vazirani had no tech experience before creating Volv. Instead, they created the app from a consumer angle, the pair told Insider. They also applied this to the interface of the app, which has neutral colors and no bold headlines to create a calm, seamless experience, Vazirani said.
So far, Volv has used purely organic marketing. It’s been featured by YouTubers and tech bloggers, and has a page on Product Hunt, which helps spread the word and give it a global audience, Almeida said. Although it’s shunned paid marketing so far, it’s looking to try it out in the future, she added.
A post shared by Volv ☁️ (@volvmedia)
Volv received pre-seed funding through Snap’s accelerator Yellow, which Vazirani said gave it “instant validation.” As well as the funding, Yellow has also given Volv access to a range of resources, including sessions hosted by guest speakers. Snapchat and Volv share the same target market and are both based around speed and short pieces, so the pairing made sense, Vazirani said.
The founders told Insider Volv is going to be raising its seed round soon but did not provide further details.
