Citi Stands Pat On Facebook, Still Buying The Stock

Shares of Facebook Inc

surged as much as 11 percent in the pre-market hours after the social media giant reported better-than-expected quarterly results. For the first quarter, the company posted earnings of $0.77 per share, $0.15 ahead of the Street's consensus. Revenue of $5.38 billion, up an 52 percent year-over-year, beat estimates by $120 million. Facebook also registered a 15 percent increase in MAUs, to 1.65 billion. Mobile MAUs were up 21 percent to 1.51 billion. Read more: http://www.benzinga.com/news/earnings/16/04/7893688/facebook-beats-on-earnings-revenue-and-maus-issues-new-stock-classdivide#ixzz477itGaiH Citi's Mark May maintained his Buy rating, and raised the price target on the stock to $141 from $133, saying that Facebook's core business along with new growth from Instagram, FAN and other initiatives drove strong performance. The analyst sees earnings of $0.80 a share for the second quarter and $3.59 a share for the full year. For the full year, May expects revenue of $25.9 billion (consensus $25.62 billion), implying year-over-year growth of 46 percent and adj. EBITDA of $16.2 billion. Street expects earnings of $0.72 a share for the second quarter and $3.15 a share for 2016. "We note that over the mid-to long-term FB has variousopportunities to layer on new, meaningful revenue streams (e.g., Instagram, video, FAN, messaging, etc.)," May wrote in a note. Shares of Facebook closed Wednesday's regular trading session at $108.89. In the pre-market, shares climbed 11 percent to $121.