Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) stock continues to fall after a brief rally that began in late April. Twitter stock hit an all-time low in mid-April, gained after an earnings “beat”, and neared $20 before once again coming back to Earth. At $18.50, TWTR stock now sits a few dollars above that $14.12 all-time low — but it may not do so for very long.

There simply doesn’t seem to be a path to upside for TWTR. M&A is off the table for the foreseeable future. The company is barely profitable — and burning cash when excluding the huge amount of Twitter shares issued to employees.

For that to change, Twitter needs years and an aggressive change in its economics. But for a number of reasons, that type of change seems highly unlikely.

As a platform, Twitter has some apparent value, as evidenced by President Donald Trump’s effective and constant use of the service. But as a stock, TWTR looks like dead money — at best.

Twitter Is Barely Profitable

Looking at analyst estimates for 2017 and 2018 — 33 and 39 cents per share, respectively — Twitter stock doesn’t seem that overvalued. Backing out the $3-plus per share in the company’s net cash, Twitter stock trades at somewhere around 34x 2018 EPS. In this market, for a company expected to post 18% EPS growth in 2018, that multiple doesn’t sound particularly outrageous.

But a closer look shows a business that isn’t really profitable or, at best, barely so.

Estimates for 2017 actually project a rather significant decline in earnings year-over-year. Twitter highlighted the $440 million in “adjusted free cash flow” it generated in 2016. But it issued $615 million worth of Twitter stock in the process. In other words, all of that cash generated came from paying employees in stock instead of cash. That’s not a method for creating real shareholder value.

However one analyzes Twitter’s fundamentals, there’s one clear point: Twitter stock is a growth stock, not a value stock. The company needs to dramatically improve its business to support even the current share price.

There’s little reason to see that happening.

Twitter Revenue Is Declining

For one, Twitter’s revenues actually are declining. Revenue fell nearly 8% in Q1, and is expected to decline again in this quarter. In the Q1 shareholder letter, the company wrote that “[we] expect advertising revenue growth to continue to meaningfully lag that of audience growth in 2017, including in Q2.”

In other words, Twitter is generating less ad dollars per user than it has in the past. That is an enormous problem.

For one, figuring out monetization should have been done already. This isn’t an early-stage social media company like Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP). Secondly, it seems to show — and management commentary seems to confirm — that existing advertisers simply aren’t that interested in Twitter as a platform. Whether it’s the reputation hit from the Leslie Jones debacle and other controversies, user disinterest in ads, or, the aesthetics of how advertisements are delivered, Twitter isn’t selling advertising all that well.

It has switched its focus to video, but that leads to far lower rates. COO Anthony Noto said on the Q1 conference call that rates were starting to stabilize, but cost per engagement (CPE) rates had fallen 60% year-over-year several times last year. Some of that is pressure from video — now Twitter’s No. 1 ad format — but some is coming from the company essentially being forced to drop its prices.

With online ad behemoths Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) driving 99% of U.S. online advertising growth, Twitter simply isn’t going to have any pricing power. Its user growth has been decent over the past few quarters, but that could just as easily been short-lived “Trump effect” rather than real user growth.

It is easy to conclude that a high valuation and declining revenue make it very difficult to create a bull case for Twitter stock. And, what remains doesn’t inspire any more confidence.

TWTR Stock Is Out of Drivers

What changes the case for Twitter stock, then?

The company says it will cut back on stock-based compensation, which could help. But this already is a company with a part-time CEO — Jack Dorsey has the same duties at Square Inc (NYSE:SQ) — and no CFO to replace Noto, who moved to the COO spot. It’s had a troubling exodus of executives over the past two years, with two more vice presidents leaving just last week.

Cutting stock issuance means either increasing cash pay, which will hurt even non-GAAP profitability, or cutting benefits, which will create significant problems replacing that talent.

Twitter’s unofficial sale process last year ended with no buyers. With everyone from Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) to Salesforce.com, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) passing on buying Twitter, there are few, if any, obvious acquirers left. A site overhaul last week drew instant mocking. Complaints about abuse and the negative tenor of discussion overhang the user experience. There’s still too few executives and no clear, coherent strategy to improve revenue per user or profits.

So, really, what drives the bull case for Twitter stock at this point?

Essentially, it’s a vague belief that 300 million-plus monthly users, including the President of the United States, are worth something.

That’s probably true. But something doesn’t mean $10 billion plus net cash on the books. And without any real bull case for TWTR stock, it seems highly likely that stock will be worth much less than $10 billion in the not-too-distant future.

As of this writing, Vince Martin did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.