Should You Buy the 27% Dip in AppLovin Stock?

1 hour ago 2

Marc Guberti, The Motley Fool

Tue, May 19, 2026 astatine 8:52 AM CDT 3 min read

AppLovin (NASDAQ: APP) is down by astir 27% twelvemonth to date, but implicit the past 5 years, it has achieved a 687% gain. Do the adtech stock's longer-term returns bespeak what lies ahead, oregon is the caller dip a much meaningful motion of things to come? AppLovin has attracted immoderate short-seller reports, but its fundamentals bespeak the institution is inactive growing.

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Under occurrence from short-sellers

AppLovin has been the people of aggregate abbreviated reports successful caller years. CapitalWatch was the latest carnivore to instrumentality purpose astatine it, claiming that AppLovin operated a back-end money-laundering scheme. AppLovin rejected those claims, and its ineligible squad demanded that the short-seller retract the report; it received an apology soon after.

Other short-sellers claimed past twelvemonth that AppLovin copies information from Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) and Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) for its advertisement network. That caused a scare, but neither advertizing tech elephantine has taken enactment connected AppLovin related to these claims. The AppLovin squad has denied these reports arsenic well, but a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) probe of the institution remained progressive successful February.

If the SEC probe finds that AppLovin's concern exemplary revolves astir amerciable practices, it would undeniably wounded the stock. In the meantime, the institution continues to station tremendous gross growth, including a 59% year-over-year betterment successful the archetypal quarter.

AppLovin has held onto astir of its gains contempt the short-seller reports due to the fact that of its enticing fundamentals. If the SEC probe delivers a verdict that is little impactful than feared, it could trigger different rally for the stock.

AppLovin tin vie with the giants portion expanding its nett margins

In Q1, AppLovin achieved a nett net borderline of 65.4% -- and that wasn't the archetypal clip implicit the past twelvemonth that it delivered margins supra 60%. The adtech institution earned astir $2 cardinal successful the quarter. Compare that to the $56.3 cardinal that Meta Platforms brought successful oregon the $109.9 cardinal that Alphabet booked, and it's evident that it's not going to drawback up to those companies anytime soon. However, AppLovin is increasing faster than some of them. This maturation besides comes with rising profits arsenic its AI advertisement motor continues to present affirmative results for businesses.

The adtech company's maturation hasn't shown signs of slowing, either. AppLovin's Q1 fiscal update shows affirmative sequential maturation successful each 4th starting from Q2 2023. Net income from continuing operations follows the aforesaid script.

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