Having soared over 35% in the last few weeks, expectations were apparently high for Twitter (TWTR) ahead of tonight's earnings.

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Source: Bloomberg

And Mr. Dorsey disappointed those high hopes as user growth fell short of expectations...

• Twitter 4Q Average Monetizable Dau 192M, Est. 193.5M

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Other key variables were solid:

• Twitter 4Q Rev. $1.29B, Est. $1.19B
• Twitter 4Q Ad Rev. $1.16B, Est. $1.05B
• Twitter 4Q Adj Ebitda $508.8M, Est. $420.7M
• Twitter 4Q Data Licensing and Other Rev. $134M, Est. $129.9M
• Twitter 4Q Adj EPS 27c, Est. 30c

However, while the pandemic forced people to stay in their homes, on their phones (glued to Twitter), but as life returns to normal soon, people may find better things to do, and the company warned that user growth will be in the “low double digits” starting in the second quarter...

“Looking beyond Q1, the significant pandemic-related surge we saw last year continues to create challenging comps."

All of which sent the stock tumbling after hours...

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Bloomberg's Sarah Frier points out how small Twitter is relative to the share of public conversation they seem to spark and consume.

"Everyone in media uses Twitter, every politician uses Twitter, but their monetizable daily active user base is still smaller than the overall population of the U.S. Snapchat is bigger. Instagram is bigger. Facebook is many times bigger.

That’s why whenever Twitter user growth decelerates, investors get concerned."

For those looking at the impact of banning President Trump - we will not see the "Trump Bump" or "Trump Dump" until the next quarter as he was banned on Jan 6th.

“2020 was an extraordinary year for Twitter. We are more proud than ever to serve the public conversation, especially in these unprecedented times,” said Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO.

"Extraordinary" indeed, Jack!