Senior Data Scientist

Reddit (RDDT) stock pops 9% as wall street shrugs off Google deal worries. Reddit (RDDT) stock rose 9.3% after a Baird analyst said Google contract renewal fears are already priced in, with the $130M deal set to expire next year. By Trader Edge September 3, 2026 3 Mins Read Tldr. * Reddit stock rose 9.3% to $158.10 on Wednesday, making it one of the top performers in the S&P 500 * Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said the market has already priced in a weak or flat renewal of Reddit's Google data deal * The Google data licensing contract, worth about $130 million in revenue, expires early next year * Reddit posted strong Q2 earnings with EPS of $1.25 vs $0.95 expected, and revenue up 61% year over year to $804.91 million * Analysts hold a consensus "Moderate Buy" rating with an average price target of $221.10 Reddit (RDDT) stock jumped 9.3% to $158.10 on Wednesday, landing it as the second best-performing stock in the S&P 500 for the day. The move came after Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said the market has already "largely priced in" a weak or flat renewal of Reddit's data licensing deal with Google. In plain terms, even if the deal comes back smaller, the stock likely won't take a big hit. That contract, which brings in around $130 million in annual revenue for Reddit, is due to expire early next year. Renewal talks are ongoing. Sebastian said a weaker renewal won't necessarily hurt the stock, but a better-than-expected deal could push the price up by $10 to $20 per share. One sticking point in the negotiations is how Reddit's content gets displayed and linked within Google's products. AI search platforms like Google and OpenAI want to keep users on their own platforms to protect ad revenue, which creates tension with Reddit's content goals. Reddit's advertising engine has pulled in $2.6 billion in revenue over the past four quarters. Earnings beat gives bulls something to point to. Reddit's most recent quarterly results were strong. The company posted EPS of $1.25 for Q2, well above the $0.95 analysts expected. Revenue came in at $804.91 million, up 61% from the same period a year ago and ahead of the $731 million forecast. During the same quarter last year, Reddit posted EPS of just $0.45, making the year-over-year jump hard to ignore. Net margin stood at 31.35% and return on equity came in at 29.02%. Analysts now expect Reddit to post full-year EPS of $5.27. User growth slowing down. Despite the strong financials, user growth has been cooling. Daily active users globally grew 17% year over year in Q1 and 18% in Q2. A year earlier, those same figures were 31% and 21%. The trend is moving in the wrong direction, even if the numbers are still positive. On the analyst front, the picture is mixed. Loop Capital has a $260 price target, Needham sits at $300, and B. Riley raised its target to $270. Zacks recently cut its rating from "strong buy" to "hold." The consensus across 31 analysts sits at "Moderate Buy" with an average target of $221.10. Insider selling has picked up. Over the past 90 days, insiders have sold roughly $33.7 million worth of stock. Director Robert Sauerberg sold 5,128 shares at $159.92 on August 25th, cutting his position by 15.92%. Reddit's 50-day moving average sits at $170.91, while the 200-day moving average is $158.53. The stock has a market cap of $29.57 billion and a beta of 2.02. Stop guessing and start investing with confidence. KnockoutStocks gives you the AI insights, market intelligence, and stock research you need to spot opportunities, cut through the noise, and make smarter investment decisions - all in one powerful platform. Simply use coupon code SPECIAL50 at checkout to claim your exclusive discount. Limited Time Offer Get 3 free stock ebooks. Discover top-performing stocks in AI, Crypto, and Technology with expert analysis. * Top 10 AI Stocks - Leading AI companies * Top 10 Crypto Stocks - Blockchain leaders * Top 10 Tech Stocks - Tech giants Futures & Crypto Trader | Sharing charts, strategies, & mindset tips to help you level up | Not Financial Advice Follow on X @Pro_Trader_Edge September 3, 2026

Reddit hit with antitrust counterclaims over Google data-access deal. By CPI | September 2, 2026 Reddit is facing antitrust counterclaims from search-data provider SerpApi, which alleges the social-media company restricted competing search engines from crawling its public discussions while maintaining privileged access for Google under a partnership reportedly worth about $60 million a year. The allegations are contained in a 63-page filing submitted Aug. 28 in federal court in Manhattan, according to PPC Land. SerpApi filed the claims while responding to an earlier lawsuit brought by Reddit accusing it and other companies of improperly circumventing technical measures designed to prevent automated collection of Reddit content. SerpApi denies Reddit's central allegations and is accusing the company of monopolization and attempted monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act. It is seeking damages, including potential treble damages under federal antitrust law, as well as injunctive and declaratory relief, PPC Land reported. At the center of the dispute is Reddit's treatment of automated web crawlers. According to PPC Land's account of SerpApi's filing, Reddit began serving different instructions to Google and other web crawlers on July 1, 2024. The counterclaims allege Google's crawler remained able to index Reddit while rival search services, including Microsoft's Bing, DuckDuckGo, Mojeek and Qwant, were prevented from doing so. The restriction followed Reddit's announcement earlier that year of an expanded partnership with Google. The arrangement was reported to be worth roughly $60 million annually, according to PPC Land's account of the filing. SerpApi argues that the arrangement gave Google an advantage in accessing a large collection of human-generated conversations that have become increasingly valuable to search engines and artificial-intelligence companies. The company is challenging Reddit's characterization of its restrictions as copyright protections. PPC Land reported that SerpApi points to a roughly six-month period between the July 2024 crawler restrictions and Google's deployment of a system called SearchGuard in January 2025. SerpApi contends that chronology undermines Reddit's argument that the original restrictions were imposed primarily to protect copyrighted material. The competing claims highlight a broader fight over the commercial value of publicly accessible internet content as technology companies seek large quantities of human-generated text for search products and AI systems. Reddit users retain ownership rights to the material they post, while granting Reddit broad licensing rights, according to the company's policies as described by PPC Land. SerpApi argues that Reddit has used those rights to license programmatic access to companies including Google and OpenAI while limiting access by other businesses. Please add Competition Policy International to your preferred sources list so its news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks! SerpApi also contends that its customers may already have authorization to access Reddit material through their own licensing arrangements and that its technology merely structures information they are entitled to retrieve. PPC Land reported that the company's filing identifies customers including Salesforce, Adobe, Nvidia, Samsung, Shopify, KPMG, Experian, Morgan Stanley, Thomson Reuters, the United Nations and The New York Times. The counterclaims attempt to define a market around large-scale collections of authentic human conversation used for search indexing and for training or grounding AI systems. SerpApi argues Reddit occupies a particularly important position in that market because of the scale and organization of its user discussions, according to PPC Land. The litigation began after Reddit sued SerpApi and other defendants in October 2025, alleging they circumvented measures intended to stop unauthorized harvesting of Reddit posts through search results. Some claims against SerpApi have since been dismissed, while Reddit's principal anti-circumvention allegations remain pending, PPC Land reported. SerpApi General Counsel Chad Anson said the company believes Reddit shifted away from its historically open approach as it prepared to go public and began charging major technology companies for access to its data. Anson also argued that SerpApi sells tools for organizing public information rather than the underlying Reddit content itself, according to statements reported by PPC Land. Reddit had not filed a response to the counterclaims at the time of PPC Land's report. In its existing court filings, Reddit has maintained that defendants bypassed technological protections surrounding copyrighted material and caused harm that includes lost licensing revenue and costs associated with preventing scraping. The allegations in SerpApi's counterclaims have not been proven in court. The dispute could help determine how far online platforms can go in restricting automated access to public material while separately licensing that material to selected technology companies. It could also test whether technical systems designed to distinguish human visitors from automated software qualify as copyright access controls under federal law. A&O Shearman bolsters antitrust practice with former FTC hire. By CPI | September 2, 2026 A&O Shearman has added a former Federal Trade Commission attorney to its antitrust partnership in Washington, D.C., continuing a recent expansion of its U.S. competition practice. The firm has hired an antitrust partner from White & Case who previously spent three years in the FTC's Bureau of Competition, where she worked on merger investigations involving the pharmaceutical and oil and gas industries. Her government experience included handling investigations from their initial stages through potential enforcement and the negotiation of consent agreements. She also worked on an FTC enforcement matter involving alleged manipulation of petroleum markets. Please add Competition Policy International to your preferred sources list so its news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks! The move gives A&O Shearman another lawyer with direct experience inside a U.S. competition authority as companies face federal review of transactions across sectors including healthcare, technology and energy. Before joining A&O Shearman, the lawyer practiced at White & Case, where she advised clients on merger reviews and antitrust investigations before the FTC and the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division. She became a partner at the firm in 2018. Her transactional work has included matters involving GlobalWafers' proposed acquisition of Siltronic, Meta's investment in Jio Platforms, Vertex Pharmaceuticals' acquisition of CTP-656 from Concert Pharmaceuticals and Anthem's proposed acquisition of Cigna. The hire is A&O Shearman's second lateral addition to its U.S. antitrust partnership this year. In April, the firm recruited Kathryn Mims in Washington, adding an antitrust litigator whose practice includes life sciences, energy, chemicals and technology matters. The additions come as A&O Shearman continues to develop its U.S. practice following the 2024 combination of Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling.

Reddit introduces 15-second video views goal for advertisers. Reddit's 15-second Engaged Video Views goal counts completed views for videos up to 15 seconds and views after 15 seconds for longer videos, where advertisers pay for these engaged views. 02 Sep 2026 11:34 IST Reddit has introduced a new 15-second Engaged Video Views optimisation goal and billing option for video advertisers, designed to help them reach users who are more likely to watch a video to completion or for at least 15 seconds. For videos 15 seconds or shorter, a completed view counts as an engaged video view. For videos longer than 15 seconds, the view is counted once a user watches for at least 15 seconds. The new goal is aimed at video formats that require longer viewing time, including film, TV, gaming and entertainment trailers, product demonstrations, feature explainers, testimonials, brand storytelling and longer-form creative. The platform said alpha testers recorded an average 51% increase in 15-second view-through rate (VTR15) and a 71% increase in video completion rate (VCR). Under the new billing option, advertisers pay for engaged video views. Automated bidding options, including Lowest cost and Cost cap, are also available. The 15-second goal is intended for campaigns where the message or product value takes longer to communicate. Advertisers can continue using the existing 6-second video views goal for shorter creative or campaigns focused on capturing attention quickly. During the beta, advertisers can use Reddit Split Testing to compare the 15-second video views goal with the existing 6-second video views goal. The tool allows advertisers to run controlled experiments in Ads Manager and compare campaign variants. Post-campaign reporting for eligible beta tests can include View-Through Rate (VTR) and Cost-Per-View (CPV). Campaigns used for eligible split tests should run at the ad group level for at least two weeks with automated bidding. Reddit recommends Lowest Cost auto-bidding and advises advertisers not to pause campaigns during the test period. As the platform mentioned, The Times used split testing to compare the two video-view optimisation goals and found improvements in video view and completion rates, CTR, and costs with the 15-second engaged video views strategy. The 15-second Engaged Video Views goal is now available in public beta to all advertisers globally.