Twitter (TWTR) is scheduled to report results of its second fiscal quarter before the market open on Friday, July 22. In light of the pending transaction with Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, the company will not hold a corresponding conference call. What to watch:

USER METRICS: Twitter's monetizable daily active usage, or mDAU, is a closely watched measure of its popularity and growth potential. Last quarter, the company reported global monetizable daily active usage increased 15.9% year-over-year to 229M, while the company's U.S. base rose 6.4% year-over-year to 39.6M. Average international mDAU was 189.4M for Q1, up 18.1% compared to the same period for the prior year.
AD REVENUE: In Q1, the company reported advertising revenue of $1.11B, an increase of 23%, or 26% on a constant currency basis.

GUIDANCE: Along with Q1 earnings, Twitter withdrew all previously provided goals and outlook given the pending acquisition by Elon Musk. The company said it would no longer be providing any forward looking guidance.

MUSK ACQUISITION: Twitter announced April 25 that it entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44B. Twitter said it expected to become a privately held company on consummation of the transaction. However, in May, Musk said the deal was "temporarily on hold," pending details on spam accounts, but added later he was "Still committed to acquisition". Further in May, Musk tweeted: "20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be *much* higher. My offer was based on Twitter's SEC filings being accurate. Yesterday, Twitter's CEO publicly refused to show proof of less than 5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does. Seems like Twitter should welcome external validation if their claims are true." Additionally in June, Musk accused the company of “actively resisting and thwarting” his information rights and in July, he sent a letter to Twitter terminating the acquisition pact. The company responded saying the effort to end the deal was “invalid and wrongful” and filed a lawsuit against Musk claiming the company faces “irreparable harm absent relief.” A trial is set for October.

OPENBACK ACQUISITION: In April, Jay Sullivan, head of consumer product at Twitter, said Twitter the company had acquired OpenBack, a mobile platform "that helps make apps more engaging through device-side control of push notifications." Sullivan said, "OpenBack and their talented team joining Twitter will help us improve our ability to deliver the right notifications at the right time, in a way that puts people's privacy first. We're thrilled to have them join the flock and look forward to seeing their impact."

FEATURES, INITIATIVES, PARTNERSHIPS: In April, Twitter announced a revision to its Ukraine policy to de-amplify certain tweets as well as upcoming testing of an edit feature within TwitterBlue. The company also announced in April it was experimenting with an Unmentioning feature on Web and also piloted crypto payments for creators in a partnership with Stripe. Additionally, Twitter tested the ability to captions for videos on and off with a ‘CC’ button in the month and also admitted it overstated user numbers between 2019 and 2021. In May, the company tested a Twitter Circle feature, enabling users to select people who can see their tweets and introduced a crisis misinformation policy. Twitter also announced it was testing a Product Drops shopping feature in June as well as a way to write longer.

ANALYST VIEW: Truist analyst Youssef Squali lowered the firm's price target on Twitter on Tuesday to $43 from $50 and kept a Hold rating on the shares as part of a broader research note on Digital Advertising Platforms. The analyst attributes his downward estimate revisions to weakening macro, FX headwinds, Russia/Ukraine war, tough comps and the disruptive nature of Musk's takeover. Squali added that if Twitter fails to bring the Musk acquisition to completion, he could see the base case for shares trading in the high $20s.

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