Facebook Stock has More Upside Potential, Analysts Claim

The Facebook stock price rallied sharply in the past couple of months as social distancing policies have spurred user growth. It is the world’s largest social media company. It’s family active users stood around 2.99bn at the end of March, with a total market capitalization of $700bn. Its most popular family products include WhatsApp and Instagram.

Facebook stock price is currently trading around $240, representing an appreciation of 20% in the past twelve months and up 175% in the past five years. The market analysts believe shares of the largest social media network have further upside potential despite the recent gains.

For instance, Jefferies has raised the stock price target to $285 as the firm argues that Facebook is set to benefit from increased spending on digital ads. The firm also claims that the company could report substantial growth in ad revenue for the second quarter amid healthier-than-expected ad spend for May and June.

Jefferies analyst Brent Thill added that trends have been improving sharply over the past two months. He expects the trends to accelerate throughout the second half of the year.

Baird, on the other hand, looks more bullish over the future fundamentals of Facebook. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian has provided a price target of $300 for Facebook stock.

“User engagement is high and pricing trends are improving for the digital ad environment, analyst Colin Sebastian said. “While still a far cry from the amazing and historic growth levels in e-commerce, the digital ad market likely emerges stronger from the current environment,” he adds.

Facebook has generated advertising revenue of $17bn in the first quarter of the year while analysts are expecting double-digit revenue growth in the second half of the year. Strong revenue growth along with healthy profits are among the biggest catalysts for Facebook share price appreciation.