What The Heck Is Going On With Facebook Stock Today?

In about an hour’s time, Facebook Inc FB plunged more than 4.0 percent on a strong day for the NASDAQ following surprising commentary from AdParlor. The Fly reports that AdParlor, the self-described “largest social and video advertising platform on the planet,” held a conference call today with CLSA and revealed some surprisingly weak Q1 Facebook ad spend.

AdParlor told CLSA that its ad spend on Facebook was down 18 percent quarter-over-quarter. The market appears to believe that AdParlor’s ad numbers will correlate with Facebook’s Q1 earnings, which are expected to be released on April 27.

Following news of the weak AdParlor numbers, Facebook’s stock dropped from above $112 to as low as $107.52 within about an hour’s time, although the stock has since bounced back to above $109 and is down less than 1.0 percent overall in Wednesday’s session.

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Some are downplaying the importance of the numbers on Twitter. “i'm hearing the CLSA adparlor number DOESN'T include Instagram, which accounts for the massive delta btw -18% and -9%” @thenotablecalls tweeted.

Former facebook employee @ajpeebles also downplayed the numbers in a series of tweets.

“$FB is ALWAYS down QoQ when going from Q4-Q1. That is how digital advertising works. Seasonal. Q4-Q1 never pos… Q1 2015 saw -8% rev QoQ and -17% net inc QoQ. This is an overreaction by people who don't know the business… #AdParlor also doesnt touch the Rift, Gear VR, or 100% of $FB ad inventory.”

Facebook shares are up 4.8 percent so far in 2016.

Disclosure: the author holds no position in the stocks mentioned.