markets news

Instagram surpasses 400 million active users, surging past Twitter

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Via: Business Insider

Long positioned as one of two social media platforms vying for the number one spot after, of course, the tech juggernaut that is Facebook; it may be time to give that #2 title completely to Instagram.

In a recent blog post on their website, the company formally announced that they had surpassed the 400 million active user mark, only a few months after they announced that they had hit the 300 million mark last December. This type of growth is not only the exact type that Twitter interim CEO Jack Dorsey, and CFO Anthony Noto were very open about not having on their site at the time of their last earnings call, but also places the usership itself of Instagram ahead of Twitter, which has been hovering around 300 million active users for the past year or so.

(Via heidicohen.com)

Beyond creating an interesting contrast to the growth of Twitter, this news is interesting for a number of other reasons. It is surely good news for Facebook, who actually purchased Instagram for $1 billion back in 2012, and has been looking to monetize the app in a number of ways in recent months. These include sponsored ads, and soon a targeted ad program will be rolled out. Advertising revenue generated by Instagram this year will be around $600 million, and is projected to as much as double in 2016 as well. Also, the app has gone truly global, as Instagram reports that most of the most recent 100 million adopters of the app live in Europe, Asia, or South America.

Instagram is the only other Facebook-owned property that generates advertising revenue at this time, and is rated very positively by clients thus far.

Markets shot downward on Monday, but there’s reason NOT to be worried

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Via: Forbes

Within minutes of the market’s opening yesterday (Monday) morning, the Dow Jones plunged nearly 1000 points, creating the pained hashtags (#BlackMonday), and anguished GIFs that accompany a market slide in 2015. It was the type of correction that is usually seen anywhere from 1-3 times per year, and although it was indeed painful while it lasted, it was not necessarily outside of the norm. Markets are already back up today, negating all but about 195 points of that drop, and none of the usual indicators that would precede an imminent bear market seem to be in place.

And while single day shocks like that are exactly that; shocking, of course long term trends are really what supplies the fundamentals of both investing, and the stock market in general. Despite some criticisms that the past six years’ gains are more due to Fed policy than real economic strength, the market has gained substantially in value over that time, only a tiny fraction which was erased yesterday. The graph below does a good job of illustrating this point.

See? Not so bad in context. (Via Forbes, YCharts)

There is no shortage of sources of possible instability in the markets heading forward, including China, a possible interest rate hike in September (although that looks slightly less likely on the heels of this instability), and more; but for now at least, there seems to be at least a bit of hopeful optimism.