Facebook Makes JPMorgan's List Of Best Ideas For 2017

JPMorgan picks Facebook Inc FB as its top large-cap idea in the Internet space along with Alphabet Inc GOOGL and Netflix, Inc. NFLX.

Specifically for Facebook, analyst Doug Anmuth believes the recent weakness continues to create a good buying opportunity as the social media giant saw healthy earnings beats, ad revenue growth, margin expansion, and significant upward earnings revisions.

That said, Facebook shares were weighed down on concerns over potential for meaningful revenue deceleration, slowing ad load growth, the upcoming January opex guide, and recent headlines around fake news, ad metrics.

Anmuth is bullish and maintained his Overweight rating with a target price of $165. The analyst listed out the following five reasons why Facebook shares should outperform in 2017:

• 1) “Continued strong engagement with MAU growth and stable to higher DAU/MAU”;
• 2) “FXN ad revenue growth of 40%+ in 2017 led by News Feed, Video, & Instagram with only modest deceleration from ad load”;
• 3) “Stable to slightly down margins (we project ~120 bps of deleverage), with cash opex ultimately coming in around +40% Y/Y (we model +42% & expect Jan guide likely +40-50% or +45-55%)”;
• 4) “Better setup given weaker sentiment than GOOGL and AMZN, as evidenced by FB’s multiple which has already compressed significantly”; and
• 5) “Compelling valuation at 16.7x our above-consensus 2018E non-GAAP EPS of $7.49, in-line with Google at 16.7x.”

The analyst noted that investors should watch trends in video, including Live and Instagram Stories, engagement trends in US and Europe, 2017 opex guide and commentary over Messenger & WhatsApp monetization.

Shares of Facebook are up 9 percent year-to-date and about 6 percent below the all-time high reached in October 2016.