Zillow has been the best performing of these stocks for a while now, up nearly 30% since competitor Trulia reported first-quarter results on April 29. Trulia is up about 14% since then, while Move is down about 3.5%. All three posted recent lows in early May, but Zillow bounced higher and faster than the others to recover.
Jim Cramer said Monday morning that Zillow could be moving higher and that may be due to a short squeeze. Some 37% of Zillow’s stock is short, and Cramer said that if the stock tops $111, we might see a “short squeeze to end all short squeezes.”
As for Trulia, it has gathered momentum in numbers of monthly unique users, which were up 42% in the first quarter, and mobile unique users rose 68%. Trulia also reported last week that nearly 50 million unique visits were made to its site in April, and that it has added new real-estate agents at a rate of more than 75 per day in the first quarter to finish the quarter with 67,000 subscribers.
Zillow’s market cap is around $4.4 billion, compared with Trulia’s $1.32 billion and Move’s $417 million. Both Zillow and Trulia grew first-quarter revenues by big numbers — nearly 70% for Zillow and 127% for Trulia. Move’s revenues grew just 7%. Move’s spending on R&D has been the highest among the three over the past four quarters, but results have been mixed. A strategist at Zacks has wondered when a combination of Trulia and Move may begin being discussed.
Shares of Zillow were up 3.2% in the noon hour Monday, at $110.25 in a 52-week range of $48.54 to $112.00.
Trulia shares were up 6.5%, at $35.33 in a 52-week range of $26.35 to $52.71, and Move’s shares were up 3.5%, at $10.55 in a 52-week range of $9.47 to $18.36.
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