Twitter soars 15% - to best level since July - after earnings beat

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Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, who doesn't earn anything from his primary day job.

• Twitter soared more than 15% after beating quarterly earnings on Tuesday morning.
• The company beat expectations for earnings and revenues despite a fall in users.
• Watch Twitter trade live.

The social-media company Twitter beat analyst expectations on Tuesday morning, sending shares up 15% and to their best level since July.

The company reported earnings $0.25 a share for the first quarter, easily beating the $0.18 that analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting.

Revenue jumped 18% year-over-year to $787 million despite the number average monthly users decreasing by 6 million versus a year ago to 330 million. Research analysts praised the company's new initiatives with advertisers, such as splitting revenues with outside publishers who stream tweets.

"We believe the investments in the platform are healthy and needed but continue to believe that margins will compress in '19 as TWTR invests for future legs of growth for both advertisers and user engagement," said Jefferies analyst Brent Thill.

Twitter also outlined its steps to reduce the negative tweets on its platform, which have become an increasing concern for the company. According to a 2017 Digital Trust Survey, only 13% of respondents felt the platform was the safest social platform to post on.

"We are taking a more proactive approach to reducing abuse and its effects on Twitter," commented Jack Dorsey, Twitter's CEO, in the earnings release. "We are reducing the burden on victims and, where possible, taking action before abuse is reported.

Twitter was up 39% this year, including Tuesday's gain.

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