New York, February 13, 2026, 12:51 p.m. ET — Regular session
- Pinterest was down about 18% at $15.19 in midday trading after forecasting first-quarter revenue below estimates.
- The company cited lower ad spending by large U.S. retailers dealing with tariff uncertainty.
- Investors are weighing Pinterest’s AI ad push against rising competition from bigger platforms and new AI tools.
Pinterest (PINS.N) shares slid on Friday, down about 18% at $15.19 in midday New York trading, after the company warned of a softer first quarter as big retailers trimmed advertising budgets.
The drop matters because Pinterest leans heavily on retail and consumer brands, and those dollars can move fast when tariffs squeeze margins. At the same time, investors are trying to work out whether new AI tools will shift ad buying and product search toward the largest platforms.
For Pinterest, it is a tough mix. The company is pitching a pivot toward AI-driven ads, but it is doing it without the scale of the biggest ad sellers.
“Pinterest is constrained by legacy monetization models amid a rapidly evolving AI landscape,” said Lenny Zephirin, CEO of market research firm Zephirin Group. Pinterest trades at about 9.5 times expected earnings for the next 12 months — a valuation yardstick investors use to compare growth bets — versus about 30 for Reddit and about 21 for Meta, according to LSEG data. Bernstein analysts said they expect “AI-powered Pinterest clones” from larger tech groups, and at least 24 brokerages cut their price targets, analysts’ estimates for where a stock could trade, after the outlook. Reuters
Late on Thursday, Pinterest forecast first-quarter revenue of $951 million to $971 million, below analysts’ average estimate of $980.1 million, according to LSEG data. Chief Financial Officer Julia Donnelly said “many of the largest retailers” hit by tariffs had been pulling back on advertising spend. Pinterest said it is pushing its AI-powered Performance+ ad suite and has hired former Spotify ads head Lee Brown as chief business officer and longtime Amazon executive Claudine Cheever as chief marketing officer. Reuters
Pinterest said fourth-quarter revenue rose 14% to $1.32 billion and ended 2025 with 619 million global monthly active users. The forecast, though, suggested that user growth is not translating cleanly into ad demand right now.
The stock touched $13.87 at the session low before paring some of the decline. Roughly 41 million shares had traded by midday, as the slide put Pinterest on track to wipe more than $2 billion from a market value around $12.5 billion, if losses hold. Yahoo
Pinterest is also rebuilding parts of its sales organization after layoffs of under 15% last month, a reshuffle meant to fund an AI push. If Friday’s move holds, it would mark a second straight quarter in which the shares have dropped more than 20% after results.
The pressure comes as advertisers keep leaning on larger ecosystems for reach and targeting, including Meta and TikTok’s U.S. business, while Reddit has posted comparatively upbeat results tied to its own AI tools. Pinterest says its visual discovery and shopping ads still differentiate the platform, but investors are asking how durable that edge is.
But the risk is that retailer caution deepens and AI ad tools from bigger rivals pull budgets away faster than Pinterest can respond. Another quarter of weak guidance could keep analysts cutting targets and leave the stock stuck near multi-year lows.
The broader market is also watching inflation closely for clues on rates. The Labor Department said the CPI rose 0.2% in January and 2.4% from a year earlier, and it scheduled the next CPI report, for February, for March 11 at 8:30 a.m. ET. Bls
