'Underweight' Twitter stocks give market analysts jitters

Washington: Microblogging site Twitter is reportedly having a terrible start in 2014 with its stocks dropping nearly 9 percent at one point and analysts giving it 'sell' rating and labeling it 'underweight'.

The company went public in November last year with shares soaring 73 percent above its offering price of 26 dollars apiece on its first day of trading and closed almost 3.5 percent down on Thursday at 59.29 dollars.

However, Morgan Stanley has ranked Twitter's shares negative, which is worrisome for analysts as the bank was one of the underwriters for the company's red-hot IPO, CNN reports.

Twitter, trading under the New York Stock Exchange with 'TWTR' symbol, currently worth over 32 billion dollars, is yet to report any financial data and its share price is based on mere speculation about the potential for big ad revenues in near future.

An analyst with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Robert Peck, said that Twitter's conference call with analysts following the earnings report on February 5, would be especially important in gauging the state of the company.

He warned that an overly optimistic tone from Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and other executives could lead to unreasonably high expectations.

CRT Capital analyst Neil Doshi wrote in a research note that investors want to see evidence that new products, such as Tailored Audiences and MoPub Native Ads, are gaining traction with marketers.