How to buy, sell and short Snowflake shares
Snowflake was the hottest tech listing this year, attracting big-name investors like Warren Buffett and Marc Benioff. Learn how to buy, sell and short Snowflake shares and discover how to analyse the Snowflake share price.
How to buy or invest in Snowflake shares
Take a position on Snowflake (SNOW) shares. You can choose to trade on the price of shares rising and falling with CFDs.
Buying Snowflake shares
- Create or log in to your trading account and go to our trading platform
- Decide whether you want to trade spread bets or CFDs
- Search for ‘Snowflake’
- Choose your position size
- Open your position and monitor your trade
How much would it cost to invest in Snowflake?
Snowflake is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) which makes it eligible for our best commission on US shares. This means that you can invest in Snowflake shares for zero commission, provided you opened three or more positions on your share dealing account in the previous calendar month.
| FX conversion fee | US best commission | US standard commission | |
| IG | 0.5% | £0 | £10 |
| Hargreaves Lansdown | 1.0% | £5.95 | £11.95 |
| AJ Bell | 1.0% | £9.95 | £9.95 |
We also offer CFDs which enable you to speculate on Snowflake price movements without having to own the shares directly. With CFDs, you’ll be able to:
- Get full exposure with a 20%-25% deposit on almost all of our tier one shares1
- Offset your losses against profits for tax purposes with CFDs2
How to sell and short Snowflake shares
Selling Snowflake shares means that you’ll be exiting your investment position, while shorting Snowflake shares means that you’ll be taking a speculative position on the Snowflake share price falling.
Shorting Snowflake shares
- Create or log in to your trading account and go to our trading platform
- Search for ‘Snowflake’
- Choose your position size
- Choose ‘sell’ in the deal ticket to go short and speculate on the price falling
- Confirm and monitor your short position
Snowflake shares: the basics
Snowflake is listed on the NYSE under the SNOW ticker. The company’s initial public offering (IPO) was one of the most hotly anticipated listings of 2020, and it started trading publicly on 16 September 2020.
The company attracted big names ahead of its listing including Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRKb) and Marc Benioff’s Salesforce (CRM), both of which managed to secure a private placement of $250 million at the IPO price. Other Snowflake investors include Sutter Hill Ventures, Dragoneer Investment Group and Sequoia Capital.
On Tuesday 15 September – one day before the IPO – it was announced that the company had sold 28 million shares for $120 each. This was above the target IPO price of $100 to $110 per share, which made many believe that the IPO would be historic for a US tech company.
Snowflake: a brief history
Snowflake was founded in 2012 and has quickly grown to be one of the front-runners in cloud computing in Silicon Valley. At the time of writing (15 September 2020), Snowflake had 2000 employees and operations in 19 countries.
The company posted strong earnings of $96.7 million in financial year ended 31 January 2019, which almost tripled to $264.7 million in financial year ended 31 January 2020.
It appears that the sky is the limit for the cloud computing provider. But, time will tell whether interest in the company will continue to heat up, or whether it will cool off.
Snowflake key personnel
There are ten people on the Snowflake leadership team:
| Name | Position |
| Frank Slootman | Chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) |
| Benoit Dageville | Co-founder and president, product |
| Mike Scarpelli | Chief financial officer (CFO) |
| Chris Degnan | Chief revenue officer |
| Denise Persson | Chief marketing officer |
| Shelly Begun | Chief human resources officer |
| Thierry Cruanes | Co-founder and chief technical officer |
| Sunny Bedi | Chief information officer |
| Christian Kleinerman | Senior vice president, product |
| Greg Czajkowski | Senior vice president, engineering and support |
There are also ten people on the Snowflake board of directors:
| Name | Company |
| Frank Slootman | Snowflake |
| Benoit Dageville | Snowflake |
| Mike Speiser | Sutter Hill Ventures |
| Kelly Kramer | Cisco |
| John McMahon | Former senior vice president of worldwide sales and services, BMC Software |
| Jeremy Burton | Observe Inc |
| Teresa Briggs | Former managing partner, Deloitte |
| Mark Garrett | Former CFO, Adobe |
| Jayshree Ullal | Arista Networks |
| Carl Eschenbach | Sequoia Capital |
What is Snowflake’s business model?
Snowflake’s business model is based around the company’s cloud-based data platform, which gives their clients ‘access to explore, share and unlock the true value of their data’.3 Snowflake is able to offer data engineering, data lakes, data warehousing, data science, data applications and data exchange all from this single platform.
It’s this platform that has enabled Snowflake to grow in the way it has since its founding, and it’s why the company has quickly become one of the most sought-after investment opportunities in Silicon Valley.
Snowflake share price: how to analyse Snowflake shares
You should use both technical analysis and fundamental analysis to analyse the Snowflake share price.
- Technical analysis is concerned with chart patterns, technical indicators and historical price action
- Fundamental analysis is based on the fundamentals of a company, including its net revenue or profit and loss statements
You should use a mix of both of these forms of analysis when assessing the Snowflake share price – especially since the company has just listed and its shares are likely to be volatile for a time as the market settles.
Footnotes
1Deposits on leveraged trades are 20%-25% for 99.14% of tier one shares (correct as of 1 June 2020). For more information, view our share trading margin rates.
2Tax laws are subject to change and depend on individual circumstances. Tax law may differ in a jurisdiction other than the UK.
3Snowflake, 2020.
This information has been prepared by IG, a trading name of IG Limited. In addition to the disclaimer below, the material on this page does not contain a record of our trading prices, or an offer of, or solicitation for, a transaction in any financial instrument. IG accepts no responsibility for any use that may be made of these comments and for any consequences that result. No representation or warranty is given as to the accuracy or completeness of this information. Consequently any person acting on it does so entirely at their own risk. Any research provided does not have regard to the specific investment objectives, financial situation and needs of any specific person who may receive it. It has not been prepared in accordance with legal requirements designed to promote the independence of investment research and as such is considered to be a marketing communication. Although we are not specifically constrained from dealing ahead of our recommendations we do not seek to take advantage of them before they are provided to our clients.
CFDs are a leveraged products. CFD trading may not be suitable for everyone and can result in losses that exceed your initial deposit, so please ensure that you fully understand the risks involved.
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