First published through The Paris News on March 10, 2017. The article can be found on their website at https://theparisnews.com/opinion/article_2d4f8532-05ab-11e7-90a8-37acef6207a0.html

This past week, I’ve been engulfed in Snapchat.

When Snapchat announced its initial public offering at $14, I had to jump in. With the way Facebook showed confidence from when it was announced with a $34 IPO and a recent close of $138.24 per share Thursday, I had to grab a couple shares of Snapchat. To put an image with it, 50 shares only cost about $1,700 with Facebook at the IPO price. Now, with the same 50 shares, we’d be looking at about $6,900. That’s a profit of $5,200. Which is the way I expect to see Snapchat go.

Luckily, when I grabbed a few shares, they were at about $24.50 a share and I noticed a trend of it dropping Friday, so I sold at about $27.50. Definitely not a way to gain tons of money. As of Thursday’s close, Snapchat was down to 22.71. But, I tend to tell myself how I wish I had the chance to buy into Apple when they were first announced.

I know, I probably shouldn’t compare Snapchat to Facebook.

However, because we do live in what’s considered a tech bubble, similar to that of the dot-com bubble back in the 90s, Snapchat may escalate with our proverbial use of technology.

Like Facebook, Snapchat has begun using advertisements to gain a profit from those who use its application. The many people who use the app know how they advertise. Snapchat will sometimes use things called filters to advertise a product. For example, a recent ad was for Honey Nut Cheerios, and the app morphed your face to fit inside a Cheerio — it uses the advertisement, as a filter itself.

Snapchat has the opportunity to surprise us all. I’ve been scouring the internet to see what people were saying regarding its shares. There’s a huge division between good and bad. Quite a few people are saying this stock will either explode or implode.

According to Fortune, Snapchat opened with the most expensive big tech IPO.

“Snap’s owners and its bankers are looking to sell shares at a sky-high 62 times sales,” said Lucinda Shen with Fortune.

Another article in Fortune magazine said Snapchat’s IPO proved we’re in a tech bubble. In other words, at the time people, like myself, were buying into Snapchat’s IPO which caused it to shoot up 44 percent on the first day.

Since Snapchat isn’t going to disappear any time soon like people said the internet would, it’ll hit a plateau soon enough. Plus, Snapchat just started sharing last week.

However the case, it seems Snapchat has lost its appeal, and people are falling back from their shares; the price for Snapchat is dropping. I’m not saying I’m going to separate myself away from this company anytime soon. Once it hits a fairly decent low, I’m going to toss a few more cents into the mix and hopefully ride the market back up, even if it’s only for a couple of extra dollars.