Pinterest surges amid possible acquisition by PayPal, Ford shares rise as ASML slumps

Yahoo Finance’s Ines Ferre reports on the day's trending tickers.

Video transcript

JARED BLIKRE: I want to bring in now Yahoo Finance's Ines Ferre, who is tracking some of our top trending tickers. And Ines, I know you're watching a deal between Pinterest-- well, this is a Bloomberg report, possibly Pinterest being bought out by PayPal. What are the details?

INES FERRE: Yeah, that's right, and that is making Pinterest shares surge, that report that you just mentioned. Take a look at shares. They're up 13% right now. And according to this report, PayPal is interested in perhaps buying Pinterest-- this is the discovery board platform-- at around $70 a share. So that's why you're seeing this bump here.

And this comes at a really interesting time. It comes at a time where we've seen a boom in online shopping and also when the co-founder of Pinterest, Evan Sharp, recently announced that he was stepping down, joining the firm LoveFrom. And Pinterest really benefited from the pandemic, especially last year, when it added so many users who were staying home during the lockdown. So this drove a lot of advertising dollars to the company.

And the stock had reached an all-time high back in February. It's since then been off of that because in the second quarter, its monthly active users for the second quarter missed estimates. But still, Pinterest, as of the second quarter, has 454 million active users. So you can imagine that for PayPal, this is very attractive. It's a very attractive user base. And they tend to be users that check on the app pretty often.

The company has been introducing new tools for its creators to be able to add a sort of a-- make their pins more shoppable, so to speak, so that it really kind of draws in that link between the content that you see on Pinterest and the shopping feature. So one analyst saying that this is a formidable competitor to, say, Instagram, which is going in that shopping direction as well. So certainly, you are seeing a rise in Pinterest stock. And also, you're seeing PayPal that is under pressure, given that it would be the buyer here.

KARINA MITCHELL: And Ines, Ford also seeing a bump right now on an upgrade from Credit Suisse, saying the auto company is looking to jump 30% by next year, partly because of an EV shift. What can you tell us?

INES FERRE: That's right. Yeah, that's right, with Ford and some of the other auto companies like GM also shifting towards the EV market. So you're looking right now at the electric vehicle stocks right now. And you can see that Ford is really the one that's jumping out, as well as GM, because that note also from Credit Suisse included GM as well.

But the analyst lifting his price target on Ford from $15 to $20, basically saying that he's seeing a favorable industry cycle heading into 2023 because of that progress that Ford is making towards the shift towards electric vehicles. And he's saying that Ford and GM are expected to beat expectations also for the third quarter of-- its third quarter results, which will be announced next week.

And the analysts having this thesis. Some are saying, look, they're focusing on the chip shortage. But he's saying that the worst is likely passed when it comes to the semi shortage and the historically low inventory that we've seen with vehicles. So the inventory rebuild, that will last well into 2023, according to the analysts. And we should see a positive trajectory for auto stocks in the next couple of years ahead.

JARED BLIKRE: Well, Ines, just speaking--

KARINA MITCHELL: OK, Ines-- go ahead, Jared.

JARED BLIKRE: I'm sorry. You know, I want to talk about the chip shortage a little bit more because I know you're also tracking ASML, which just released their earnings. And they had some nice beats, but their fourth quarter guidance a little bit weak, pushing some revenue out to the next quarter. But also, they're saying that the chip shortage could very well persist into 2022.

INES FERRE: Yeah, that's right. And this is a really interesting and exciting kind of story when you talk about the chip shortage, because as you said, the company beat on profits, but its guidance for its revenue came in light of what the Street was expecting. So ASML is a Dutch supplier of manufacturing equipment for the chip industry. They make those machines that print chips when it comes to phones, when it comes to computers. Their revenue guidance came in light.

And the company is saying that it's facing shortages of materials and logistic issues. One analyst saying that, look, these results were solid, but it's clear that the company is facing supply chain issues. And when you're trying to push capacity up, when you're trying to push capacity up for chips, when you have the machines that are seeing a sort of shortage when it comes to those materials for machines, then you've got a problem, because everyone is trying to ramp up chip producing.

Now, also, another issue with ASML is that the company can't recognize revenue until after the machines are installed, even if they have been shipped. So, many clients are ordering ahead of time and trying to ship ahead of time, but maybe they haven't installed them yet. And so the company can't necessarily record that revenue on their books yet.