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Is Facebook finally living up to the pre-IPO hype?
The social network’s stock is up about 25 percent in the first two hours of trading on Thursday. At more than $33 per share, Facebook shares are at their highest price since the day after its IPO in May 2012.
The climb comes after Facebook reported that its active monthly user base grew 21 percent to 1.15 billion in the second financial quarter and had $656 million in mobile ad revenue, ahead of analyst expectations. Income in that sector now makes up 41 percent of its overall advertising.
Analysts are upgrading their price targets for Mark Zuckerberg‘s company.
STORY: Facebook Shares Rise 17 Percent After the Closing Bell
Saying he was raising estimates “considerably,” analyst John Blackledge at Cowen Group says that the second-quarter financial report “indicates that FB is managing the mobile transition better than expected.”
Anthony DiClemente at Barclays is raising his price target on the company to $37, which would be close to an all-time high for Facebook’s stock. He expects that revenue will climb 38 percent to about $9 billion in 2014.
And comments by Jordan Rohan at Stifel were more positive still, saying he was moving his own price target up to $38.
The analyst commented, “Frankly, this was one of the strongest quarterly earnings reports for any Internet company we have seen since the financial crisis. … In our view, this is the type of quarter that makes an investor step back to re-evaluate his or her opinion of a company.”
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