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Tech

Facebook Is Still Rich

Wall Street is unimpressed.
Image via Flickr /Andrew Feinberg

The loathe worthy circle jerk that happens when Facebook releases its quarterly earnings report is getting worse. The social network released its stats from the first quarter to undulating masses of investment bankers, hedge fund hotshots, hardworking day traders, and hungover journalists on Wednesday afternoon.

Heaps of all caps tweets lauding Facebook's marginal increase in revenue to $1.46 billion, just over the expected $1.44 billion, and 54 percent boost in mobile traffic followed soon thereafter. Profits are up to $219 million from last year's $209 million, too, as is advertising revenue which spiked 43 percent to $1.25 billion. The number of monthly active users rose to 1.11 billion, a 23 percent increase over the last quarter.

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If you happen to be a Facebook shareholder, all this basically sounds like good news, right? Wrong. Wall Street is basically unimpressed, as is shown in the almost negligible bump in Facebook's share price after hours. If you happen to be a normal human, you see numbers like $1.46 billion revenue figure and must think this is just crazy talk. Facebook is rich! Right?

While I realize that stock market stats look like crazy talk to a lot of people who don't follow the market, the particular brand of scrutiny that flocks around these Facebook earnings reports is curious. With Facebook more than other tech stocks, the general sentiment seems to highlight what a Sisyphean task the social network faces when it comes to pleasing investors. No matter how big Facebook's numbers get, Wall Street thinks they should be bigger and soon.

It sounds like I'm defending Facebook stock, but I'm not. I'm actually just bored with everyone still drooling over Facebook stock. The Facebook's overhyped IPO stopped the presses almost exactly a year ago, and everybody seemed to assume that the hype would fade quickly, giving us some mindspace to think rationally about Facebook as a company.

But the hype endures. We'll see just how durable this hype is as analysts pick apart the data in the quarterly earnings reports, but in the meantime, prepare to wade through a lot of nonsensical, sensational and even speculative stories about Facebook's financial fortunes and future. (Pro tip: Don't trust any of it.)

It's already started, in fact. It's a real mess.