Trip Chowdhry of Global Equities Research has some harsh words to say following Facebook Inc's FB third quarter earnings report and conference call, which resulted in the stock losing nearly 6 percent by Thursday morning.
Chowdhry highlighted a specific comment made during the conference call that management expects ad growth to slow "meaningfully" due to the limits on "ad load."
According to the analyst, Facebook's third quarter was a once-in-a-lifetime event as the social media company was blessed with the 2016 Olympics and 2016 Presidential Election occurring at the same time. As such, the quarter is also "as good as it can get" which essentially implies a "peak" for Facebook's stock.
Chowdhry said Facebook's stock has only one way to go -- down -- despite the fact that it's the strongest company in the social media space.
Chowdhry also believes the social media space is entering the initial stages of a "zero-sum" in which there are only 24 hours in a day and time consumed in one social media platform is merely coming out of time spent on another.
Finally, Chowdhry stated that investors who are counting on Facebook's next leg of growth coming from augmented reality and virtually reality should reconsider. The analyst believes the new technology will merely follow the same path of wearables and drones.
"Just look at Fitbit Inc FIT and GoPro Inc GPRO - total POS," the analyst concluded. "We just don't understand why investors want to keep chasing every hot air [stock]."
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