Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Photo via Flickr/Jdlasica.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Photo via Flickr/Jdlasica.

Twitter is being acquired by Rupert Murdoch. No.

Twitter is being acquired by Marc Andreessen. No

Twitter is attracting erroneous speculation as the social network struggles to add new users and generate profits. Yes.

Investors would be wise to be skeptical of any new rumors about Twitter. Turns out most of the talk during the past few weeks about the company being acquired was false. But that hasn’t stopped the company’s share price from pogoing up and down. This week, The Information reported Andreessen and private equity firm Silver Lake had “considered some sort of deal” for Twitter.

twitterdown1From the start, the story seemed thin. Few details were provided and the author acknowledged the unnamed sources cited didn’t know whether any negotiations were underway. A day later, Fortune  threw water all over the rumor when the magazine’s unnamed sources said: “Silver Lake has no interest in acquiring even a slice of Twitter.”

Two weeks earlier, Rupert Murdoch and News Corp were rumored to be buying Twitter, which Murdoch and News Corp., promptly denied.

By comparison, the legitimate news that four top executives had resigned from Twitter and that the company was adding features to make the site more appealing to non users seemed like sideshows. Another sort of rumor surfaced in a Business Insider report this week. The online news outlet obtained research that showed users are posting fewer tweets. Twitter says Business Insider’s numbers are incorrect.

This is the kind of chatter that often dogs public companies just prior to reporting earnings, and especially to companies that are hurting. Maybe they’re more vulnerable to the bulls and bears who try to steer a stock’s direction by floating false info. Is that happening here?

What we do know is that when Twitter reports earnings on Feb. 10, the number of users is expected to be not much higher than 300 million, or hardly any growth at all.

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