Last night — the day before Twitter shares were set to begin trading, and, boy, did they begin trading — news broke that Square was looking for a bank to manage its initial public offering in 2014. It looks like Jack Dorsey wants to ride Twitter’s momentum to another big payday. But Square is no Twitter. Twitter has begun to monetize its audience, both in advertising and commerce, generating $422 million in revenue in 2013, although it posted a net loss of $134 million. Still, analysts are sweet on the stock, which opened at $26 and leaped up to $45 just a few hours later, a 70% jump. (At 1:50 PM ET, TWTR was trading at around $46 per share for a market capitalization of more than $25 billion.) Mark Mahaney, internet analyst at RBC Capital Markets, said of Twitter: “This company does have, based on our estimates, the highest revenue growth in the sector amongst the major internet stocks.” Yes, that includes Facebook. Square, on the other hand, is not looking at an easy path to profitability. The Wall Street Journal lists Square’s 2013 revenue at around $150 million on $20 billion in payments processed. Skeptics question whether the payments processor ends [...]
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