Tag: Mark Zuckerburg

Facebook Inc. (FB) crushed its Q1 2019 earnings estimates on both top line revenue and bottom line profit. Revenue grew 26% year-over-year, giving rise to investor amnesia as it relates to its string of privacy scandals. Facebook is now testing its all-time highs with a reasonable price-to-earnings multiple when compared to its tech cohort. As the company attempts to move past its privacy issues while restoring trust with its user base, negative sentiment has abated. Facebook continues to post unparalleled growth for a company of its size while its platforms are the go-to properties for advertisers and influencers. Will Facebook be able to march forward without being plagued by the slew of issues ranging from international regulatory scrutiny, user privacy issues, high-level employee mass exodus, and a questionably toxic company culture? Some analysts argue that the negative confluence of the aforementioned issues will drive up costs, narrow revenue streams, and weaken the user base. The privacy scandal has already resulted in increased costs surrounding compliance, monitoring, censorship, and scrubbing the platform from deceptive marketing. If the company continues its path forward on the privacy front while posting best-in-class revenue growth, the stock will likely continue to elevate higher.

Q1 Blowout Quarter

Facebook continues to deliver phenomenal growth across the company while its cash hoard swells to $45 billion. The company posted EPS and revenue of $1.89 and $15.08 billion, respectively. These numbers beat on EPS by $0.27 and beat on revenue by $104.3 million.

"We had a good quarter, and our business and community continue to grow," said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder, and CEO. "We are focused on building out our privacy-focused vision for the future of social networking, and working collaboratively to address important issues around the internet."

The stock exploded higher on the earnings news, shooting from $182 to $195 or 7% in a single session. Facebook’s properties continue to grow and continue to expand its revenue moat in advertising spend. Instagram and Whatsapp will likely serve as major growth catalysts as these assets still have a lot of room for its monetization efforts. Continue reading "Facebook - Privacy Scandal Amnesia" →

Facebook Inc. (FB) continues to be plagued by a slew of issues ranging from international regulatory scrutiny, user privacy issues, high-level employee mass exodus, and questionably toxic company culture. As a result of these overarching issues weighing on the company, the stock has become volatile with dramatic moves in both directions. The stock has traded over a $95 per share range during the past 52 weeks, logging a high of $218 and a low of $123. The magnitude of this move has been frustrating as one issue after another seems to impact the stock despite record revenue and EPS negatively. Pundits argue that the negative confluence of the issues above will drive up costs, narrow revenue streams and weaken the user base. The privacy scandal has already resulted in increased costs surrounding compliance, monitoring, censorship and scrubbing the platform from deceptive marketing.

PR Disaster

Facebook has been mired in privacy scandals, public relations mismanagement, a conference call that wiped out $119 billion in market capitalization in a single session and a very public exodus of many high-level departures across the company. There’s a laundry list of mishaps originating from its data misuse scandal involving Cambridge Analytica as that continued to surface across the globe. Security issues affecting 50 million accounts, a lawsuit alleging concealing video admeasurements and increasing EU scrutiny plagued the stock. The list continues to evolve, and now there’s a report that Facebook stored user passwords unencrypted for years while its AI is still being refined due to its inability to remove the New Zealand terrorist attack video promptly before it was viewed 4,000 times. Additionally, Facebook’s network of products suffered an outage which impacted Instagram and Whatsapp as well as its flagship Facebook platform (Figure 1). Facebook has a lot of work ahead of its to reign-in all these issues and retain talent in what appears to be a questionable company culture. Continue reading "Facebook - Frustrating and Volatile Situation" →

Is Facebook (FB) finally de-risked after its self-inflicted data misuse privacy scandal and the rout in the technology sector? Facebook has been mired in privacy scandals, public relations mismanagement and a very public exodus of many high-level departures across the company. If this wasn’t bad enough, Facebook totally dropped the ball on its second quarter conference call, wiping out $119 billion in market capitalization in a single session marking the worst one day drop for any large-cap company in history. This negative backdrop was met with a technology sell-off in the fourth quarter of 2018 culminating into the perfect set-up to knock the stock into bear market territory. Facebook sold-off during these two waves from $218 in July to a low of $123 in December of 2018, logging a 43% decline over this five-month period. Despite the aforementioned stock implosion, Facebook remains one of the most compelling large-cap growth companies posting double-digit growth with P/E and PEG ratios well below its peers. Recently, JPMorgan reiterated Facebook as a “best idea” and expects the stock reach $195 and “climb the wall of worry.” Baird also came out with an outperform rating basing its target of $195 on stabilizing engagement on its Facebook platform and growth in its Instagram property. Facebook has grown its revenues by over 30% for 20 consecutive quarters with its latest quarter coming in at 33% revenue growth. As this revenue streak continues coupled with the dramatic decline in its stock and cheap valuation, I think Facebook is de-risked. The technology cohort has started to show signs of resurgence with Facebook and Netflix (NFLX) leading the pack with plenty of upside for the former.

2018 Disaster

Ancillary fallout emanating from its data misuse scandal involving Cambridge Analytica continued to surface throughout 2018 across the globe in various regions. Security issues affecting 50 million accounts, a lawsuit alleging concealing video admeasurements and increasing EU scrutiny plagued the stock. The original mishandling user data resulted in the stock tumbling from $195 to $152 or ~20% at the time. Facebook appreciated off those data misuse lows and broke out to $220 however this scenario ended abruptly on the heels of its Q2 earnings. Facebook issued a major guide down in growth for the next few quarters tampering growth expectations in the near term. Facebook faced a challenging confluence of slowing revenue growth, margin compression and stagnant daily active users in the near to intermediate term. There was an initiative that had the backing of four large institutional investors to remove Mark Zuckerberg as Facebook’s chairman in the wake of all of these security issues. Continue reading "Is Facebook Finally A Buy After The Tech Rout?" →