Analysts React Positively To Facebook Earnings

The Street has an overwhelmingly bullish view of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB), particularly relative to current price. Wednesday's strong earnings report did little to change that view, except for the analysts at CRT Capital.

Here’s a round up of what analysts have to say following earnings.

CRT Capital – Buy, Price target to $82 from $84

“We believe that FB has under-invested in its business, and there are many near, medium and long-term opportunities that FB should be investing against to take share, and grow new revenue sources.”

Morgan Stanley – Overweight, Price target at $90

“FB's $2.5 bn in 4Q mobile ad revenue, which doubled YoY, is the highlight for us. In an ad market growing 2-3% overall, 14% in online, this growth indicates FB is clearly taking share both within online (from other display) and from traditional platforms.”

Nomura – Buy, Price target at $90

“By all metrics, Facebook’s forward path remains well intact, as both 4Q results and forward guidance exemplified steady, workmanlike growth, and should be enough to appease investors.”

SunTrust – Buy, Price target at $90

“More importantly, we feel this spending guidance is a positive for two reasons: 1) last year Facebook guided to 40-45% spending and delivered ~34% and may be conservative for 2015; and 2) investing in the optionality – we discuss 4 areas that could generate ~$4B in revenues going forward (at high incremental margins).”

Wedbush – Outperform, Price target to $94 from $90

“It was encouraging to see that the newer growth initiatives are starting to gain steam, notably video ads, FAN, Atlas, and Instagram monetization. We believe these drivers are at the early stages of ramping and provide visibility into continued strong growth.”

Credit Suisse – Outperform, Price target to $104 from $102

“FB shares remain one of our highest-conviction ideas given the stacked product release slate we believe it has in store and ensuing shareholder value creation via the release of new products beyond what is currently reflected in our model. Looking longer-term, this quarter left us with increased conviction that the near-term investment will lead to multiple paths of monetization.”