Etsy 2015 Annual Report Download - page 34

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our internal controls, investors may lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports and that could cause the price of our common
stock to decline. We could become subject to investigations by Nasdaq, the SEC or other regulatory authorities, which could require additional management
attention and which could adversely affect our business.
In addition, our internal control over financial reporting will not prevent or detect all errors and fraud. Because of the inherent limitations in all control
systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that misstatements due to error or fraud will not occur or that all control issues and
instances of fraud will be detected.
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Natural disasters and other adverse weather and climate conditions, public health crises, political crises, such as terrorist attacks, war and other political
instability, or other unexpected events, could disrupt our operations, Internet or mobile networks, or the operations of one or more of our service providers.
For example, when Hurricane Sandy struck New York in October 2012, although our data centers were unaffected, our headquarters in Brooklyn was closed
for five days, and we experienced a heavy volume of support requests from Etsy sellers and Etsy buyers, which required us to devote additional resources to
handle those requests. Events of this type could also impact Etsy sellers’ ability to continue producing goods for sale in our marketplace. In addition, such
events could negatively impact consumer spending in the affected regions. If any of these events occurs, our business could be adversely affected.
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The price of our common stock has been and is likely to continue to be volatile. For example, since shares of our common stock were sold in our IPO in April
2015, our common stock's daily closing price on Nasdaq has ranged from a low of $6.36 to a high of $30.00 through February 26, 2016. The price of our
common stock may fluctuate significantly for numerous reasons, many of which are beyond our control, such as:
• variations in our operating results and other financial and operational metrics, including the key financial and operating metrics disclosed in this Annual
Report, as well as how those results and metrics compare to analyst and investor expectations;
• forward-looking statements related to our financial projections, our failure to meet or exceed our financial projections, or changes in our financial
projections;
• failure of analysts to initiate or maintain coverage of our company, changes in their estimates of our operating results or changes in recommendations by
analysts that follow our common stock or a negative view of our financial projections;
• announcements of new services or enhancements, strategic alliances or significant agreements or other developments by us or our competitors;
• announcements by us or our competitors of mergers or acquisitions or rumors of such transactions involving us or our competitors;
• changes in our board of directors, management or other key personnel;
• disruptions in our marketplace due to hardware, software or network problems, security breaches or other issues;
• the strength of the global economy or the economy in the jurisdictions in which we operate, currency fluctuations, and market conditions in our industry
and those affecting members of our community;
• trading activity by our principal stockholders, including upon the expiration of contractual lock-up agreements, and sales of large blocks of our
common stock;
• the number of shares of our common stock that are available for public trading;
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