Facebook shares closed at an all-time high of $218.30 on Thursday, valuing it at $622B and surpassing the previous high of $217.50 reached in July 2018
Facebook's share price has hit an all-time high, surpassing the peak it reached before a series of privacy scandals in 2018 and despite attacks …
Financial TimesTim Bradshaw
Context & Ripple Effects
Facebook has round-tripped the worst stretch in its public history. The stock's previous record close came on the eve of its July 2018 earnings report, when it sat at $217.50; the next day it fell 19% and erased roughly $120B in market value after disappointing user numbers and growth guidance.
Eighteen months later the shares have reclaimed that level and pushed past it to $218.30, a $622B valuation. What carried it back is visible in the interim results: the Q4 2019 report showed net income up 61% YoY and revenue up 30%, extending a beat streak that began with mobile ad mix back in Q2 2016.
First-order effects
Investors who held through the 2018 crash are made whole: the stock now trades above the $217.50 pre-scandal peak, restoring the full $622B-plus valuation the privacy controversies had cost it.
Second-order effects
With the record re-established on the strength of earnings rather than sentiment, Facebook enters 2020 with market cover to keep spending aggressively — headcount grew 42% YoY through the scandal period without denting margins.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, the market treats platform scandals as episodic costs against a durable ad-revenue engine — meaning regulatory and reputational shocks reprice the stock temporarily but do not reset its structural valuation.
The trend: Big-platform stocks are decoupling from scandal cycles: as long as quarterly ad revenue keeps compounding, privacy crises register as drawdowns to be bought through rather than permanent impairments.
lol in zuckerberg's new year message, where he mentions he wants FB to become an ecommerce platform to help small businesses, he reveals what he actually wants them to do: “buying ads to get their message out more broadly” 🤑 https://www.facebook.com/...
Facebook's PR is completely broken... And that's probably the least of our worries. This is a terrific analysis https://themargins.substack.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Great read from @ranjanxroy at The Margins on how Facebook's comms seems to have fallen apart and why that matters. https://themargins.substack.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Been saying it for the past 2 years. The second FB comms lost their consumer/tech talent with a lick of empathy and replaced them with political ops it all went downhill. You can smell the arrogance on them. You can feel the holier than thouness in every word. https://twitter.com…
Fb's PR has gotten sloppier & more needlessly snarky/combative. It seems exhausted with diplomacy, though that's what it needs most. Smart observation by @ranjanxroy https://themargins.substack.com/ ...
Do I have the sequence right? Monday - “deep fake” announcement. Tuesday — Teen Vogue. Wednesday - Boz memo. Thursday - election advertising announcement. Friday - Zuck 10 year goals. Busy week of generally horrible press. https://twitter.com/...
I like the Margins but this post suggests that Facebook's PR problems started in November 2018. In reality they started in November 2016 and have never really let up for more than a few weeks since https://twitter.com/...
“This is the very definition of a need for regulation. By its own admission, the company is acknowledging its unnatural power... The issue is simply its size. An individual, for-profit corporation should not get to decide whether democracy will work.” https://themargins.substack.…
“An individual, for-profit corporation should not get to decide whether democracy will work.” This piece by @ranjanxroy nails the shitstorm that is @Facebook's shameful election ad policy right now and the ensuing PR shitstorm. https://themargins.substack.com/ ...
Tell me again why it's important to separate the newsroom from the rest of the organization so that nobody knows what the other is doing? https://twitter.com/...
A Condé Nast employee I spoke with told me that editorial staff at Teen Vogue had no idea about that Facebook post. When I pressed the issue, neither Condé Nast or Facebook would comment. My latest: https://jezebel.com/...