FB - Facebook, Inc.
| Previous close | 182.59 |
| Open | 183.75 |
| Bid | 183.70 x 1000 |
| Ask | 183.80 x 1300 |
| Day's range | 182.36 - 185.10 |
| 52-week range | 123.02 - 208.66 |
| Volume | 12,844,832 |
| Avg. volume | 16,865,079 |
| Market cap | 524.087B |
| Beta (3Y monthly) | 1.25 |
| PE ratio (TTM) | 31.07 |
| EPS (TTM) | 5.91 |
| Earnings date | 28 Oct 2019 - 1 Nov 2019 |
| Forward dividend & yield | N/A (N/A) |
| Ex-dividend date | N/A |
| 1y target est | 232.33 |
- Bloomberg
Trump’s Dinner Guest on Friday Will Be Apple’s CEO Tim Cook
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly lashed out at technology giants and their leaders, announced on Friday evening that he would be dining with Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook.“Having dinner tonight with Tim Cook of Apple,” Trump, who is staying at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, wrote on Twitter. “They will be spending vast sums of money in the U.S. Great!”He did not elaborate, and Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the meeting.Heads of other major technology companies, including Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. have not fared as well in the president’s tweets and public remarks.He and his political allies have made unsupported claims that social media companies muzzle conservative views. Trump has assailed Amazon for edging out brick-and-mortar retailers and criticized its founder Jeff Bezos, who owns the Washington Post.Pressure on tech companies is increasing in Washington as congressional Republicans examine accusations of bias against conservatives; Democrats in the House conduct an antitrust inquiry and officials at the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission divvy up oversight of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon.Earlier this week, FTC Chairman Joe Simons said in an interview that he wouldn’t let Trump’s complaints about the size and political inclinations of large technology platforms affect his agency’s decisions.Cook visited the White House in June to discuss the Trump administration’s efforts to develop job training programs that meet the changing demands of U.S. employers. The meeting was part of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, a working group that includes many corporate leaders. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Trump’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump unveiled the initiative earlier this year.\--With assistance from Alistair Barr.To contact the reporter on this story: John Harney in Washington at jharney2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, John HarneyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
Shopify’s Success Puts Spotlight on Next Canadian Tech Stars
(Bloomberg) -- Shopify Inc.’s scorching rally and Lightspeed POS Inc.’s successful trading debut this year are throwing the spotlight on who might be the next Canadian tech star to go public.A total of C$1 billion ($751 million) was invested in 142 venture capital deals in the first quarter, up 48% from a year earlier, according to the Canadian Venture & Private Equity Association. More than half of that was in tech and increasingly from U.S. investors.Here’s what the founders of some of Canada’s hottest tech firms are saying about the future of their companies, and the potential for initial public offerings:ClearbancClearbanc offers $10,000 to $10 million to startups to help fund their marketing campaigns on Facebook, Google and the like in return for a flat fee and a share of revenue.The Toronto-based investment firm, founded in 2015, raised $300 million in new funding led by Highland Capital Partners of the U.S., the largest disclosed VC-financing this year in Canada. That brings total funding to $420 million.Clearbanc plans to offer $1 billion in financing this year and is interested in funding parts of a business that could turn into a repeatable revenue stream--infrastructure, shipping and sales commissions.It’s expanding outside the U.S. and Canada, where there’s a less developed venture ecosystem and “banks are more conservative,” according to co-founder and chief executive officer, Andrew D’Souza.“We think that the fundamentals of the business, the market opportunity, justifies a large standalone business,” D’Souza said about the possibility of an IPO.WattpadWattpad Corp. may no longer be a startup but its ambitions just keep growing. Founded as a mobile-reading app, 12-year-old Wattpad now calls itself a “multi-platform entertainment company.”The Toronto-based company has provided content for one of the most re-watched movies on Netflix (“The Kissing Booth”), a Hulu series (“Light as a Feather”), and this year a Hollywood feature film (“After”), all through Wattpad Studios, launched in 2016.Last week it inked a deal with Penguin Random House in the U.K. to turn its online content, mainly created and read by young women, into books. That follows the launch of its own publishing imprint, Wattpad Books, in the U.S. in April.The company uses data from more than 80 million monthly active users to identify the best stories across its platform and turn them into content. It has launched a paid, ad-free version as well as exclusive content for a fee.Wattpad has raised $117.8 million from investors including OMERS Ventures, Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s capital arm, and August Capital Corp, and is generating revenue in “eight figures,” according to co-founder and chief executive, Allen Lau.As for an IPO, it’s “not what we spend time focusing on,” Lau said. “Our focus right now is on movies and TV shows, with our partners.”VidyardVidyard Inc. wants to be the YouTube of business videos. Its software allows companies to create personalized videos to engage with customers and use data from their viewing habits to analyze that engagement.Companies are expected to spend $103 billion annually in video-ad marketing by 2023, according to Forrester Research.Vidyard counts 1,200 businesses in over 170 countries as its customers, including enterprise customers such as Honeywell International Inc., LinkedIn and Citibank.“In terms of the next two to three years, we’re just focused on consistent, hockey-stick style growth,” says Devon Galloway, co-founder and chief technology officer at Kitchener, Ontario-based Vidyard.The company has raised $60 million to date from investors including OMERS Ventures, Inovia Capital and the venture capital arm of Salesforce Inc.Galloway said if Vidyard continues to grow as well as it has an IPO would certainly be on its path.WealthsimpleWealthsimple Inc., wishes to replace banks as a customer’s primary financial relationship, according to founder and CEO Michael Katchen.“We want to be a firm that demystifies money,” Katchen said in an interview in Bloomberg’s Toronto office. The investment-services company has more than C$5 billion in assets under management and 175,000 customers in Canada, the U.S. and U.K.The robo-adviser favored by millennials, is also targeting wealthier Canadians and has branched out into commission-free stock trading and savings products. Mortgages, life insurance and checking accounts could be next, Katchen said.Founded in 2014, WealthSimple is not yet profitable, but its backers are patient, Katchen said. These include Power Financial Corp., an investment arm run by the Desmarais family and Allianz SE.Katchen said he’s interested in an IPO but it’s still “a few years away.”(Updates with Clearbanc’s financing plan)To contact the reporter on this story: Simran Jagdev in Toronto at sjagdev1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jacqueline Thorpe at jthorpe23@bloomberg.net;David Scanlan at dscanlan@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Motley Fool
To Predict Where Fashion's Headed, Kohl's Teams Up With Facebook
The social media giant's big data could guide the department store chain toward a trendier future.
- Reuters
Irish regulator near end of first privacy probe, ruling to take months
Ireland's data privacy regulator is close to concluding its first probe into a multinational company under the EU's new privacy laws, likely to involve Facebook's WhatsApp subsidiary, although a formal decision could take months. Ireland hosts the European headquarters of a number of U.S. technology firms.
- Reuters
Irish regulator nears end of first privacy probe, ruling to take months
Ireland's data privacy regulator is close to concluding its first probe into a multinational company under the EU's new privacy laws, likely to involve Facebook's WhatsApp subsidiary, although a formal decision could take months. Ireland hosts the European headquarters of a number of U.S. technology firms.
- Bloomberg
Thailand Plans $10 Billion Economic Boost to Hit 3% Growth
(Bloomberg) -- Thailand plans a 316-billion-baht ($10.2 billion) package of government spending and loans to counter an economic slowdown caused by the U.S.-China trade war and currency strength.The package includes help for farmers and people on low incomes, as well as initiatives to bolster consumer spending and investment, Finance Minister Uttama Savanayana said in a briefing Friday in Bangkok. The proposal needs approval from the Cabinet.“We want to support the economy in the second half of the year so people have more confidence and spend money,” Uttama said.About 200 billion baht of the package would be loans from state banks, he said. Some 100 billion baht would come from the annual budget, roughly evenly split between fresh stimulus spending and already allocated funds.Calls are growing for governments around the world to loosen their budgets to tackle economic slowdowns. Central banks say they can’t do the job with monetary stimulus alone. The Bank of Thailand unexpectedly lowered borrowing costs this month, but elevated household debt limits its scope for aggressive easing.“Current math for the 2020 fiscal year suggests that there is ample room to increase spending and still keep within statutory limitations for the deficit and public debt levels,” said Radhika Rao, an economist at DBS Group Holdings Ltd. in Singapore.Farmers, WelfareThe proposed stimulus package includes compensation and emergency loans for farmers afflicted by drought, more money for welfare card holders and efforts to encourage tourism.Uttama said he planned to withdraw an earlier Facebook post that detailed a 200-billion-baht economic boost because it needs to be updated.The government said it’s seeking at least 3% economic growth in 2019, and 3.5% next year, but signaled that expansion slowed in the second quarter.Gross domestic product likely rose 2.3% in April through June -- the weakest pace in almost five years -- as exports and tourism struggled, a Bloomberg survey shows. The nation is vulnerable to U.S.-China tension, as Asia’s top economy is its largest trading partner and biggest source of tourists.Currency strength is another challenge for Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy. The baht is up more than 5% against the dollar this year, making it one of the strongest performers in emerging markets.(Updates with details from briefing on stimulus from first paragraph.)\--With assistance from Cynthia Li, Ailing Tan and Michael S. Arnold.To contact the reporters on this story: Suttinee Yuvejwattana in Bangkok at suttinee1@bloomberg.net;Natnicha Chuwiruch in Bangkok at nchuwiruch@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sunil Jagtiani at sjagtiani@bloomberg.net, Karthikeyan SundaramFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
AI Startup Plans IPO at Value of Over $1 Billion -- in China
(Bloomberg) -- The promise of artificial intelligence has yet to translate into big business. Now Kai-Fu Lee, a prominent venture capitalist in China and founder of Sinovation Ventures, says his firm’s new startup should be able to reach $100 million in revenue next year and go public the year after.AInnovation, established in March 2018, develops artificial intelligence products for companies in industries such as retail, manufacturing, and finance. Its customers include Mars Inc., Carlsberg A/S, Nestle SA, Foxconn Technology Group, China Everbright Bank Co. and Postal Savings Bank of China Co.Chief Executive Officer Hocking Xu, a veteran of International Business Machines Corp. and SAP SE, has hired staff that work with traditional companies to figure out how to take advantage of AI in their operations. AInnovation is on track to hit $100 million in revenue within two years of its founding, the fastest pace yet for such a startup, Lee said.“We took the approach of ‘Let’s take some of the best business people and let’s target the industries which need AI the most’,” he said.Lee figures AInnovation will be able to go public in less than two years at a valuation of $1 billion to $2 billion. The firm has raised about $70 million so far from Sinovation, CICC ALPHA and Chengwei Capital. Since the company was funded with yuan, it would most likely list domestically, either on China’s new NASDAQ-like Star market, or on the country’s ChiNext.For retail companies, AInnovation sells products including a smart vending machine that opens with facial recognition and software that monitors retail shelves with image recognition. It’s created computer vision technology that detects defects on the production line for manufacturers and underwriting software and natural language processing technology for financial firms. There’s a large market in particular for technology to catch flaws early in the manufacturing process, said Jeffrey Ding, a researcher with Oxford’s Center for the Governance of AI. That effort “aligns with the Chinese government’s priorities to upgrade smart manufacturing capabilities to compete with countries like Germany and Switzerland,” he said in an email.The former president of Google China, Kai-Fu Lee founded Sinovation Ventures in 2009. It manages more than $2 billion across seven funds in U.S. and Chinese currencies. It holds shares in more than 300 companies, most of which are in China. Its investments include autonomous driving company Momenta, consumer AI chip firm Horizon Robotics Inc. and bitcoin mining and AI chip company Bitmain Technologies Ltd.In artificial intelligence, “we’re still at a very early stage in the commercialization,” Lee said. “We’re still at the equivalent of early internet portals, back when everybody was using Yahoo and there wasn’t even a Google, Amazon, or Facebook.”Global economic ructions, however, may present short-term challenges. Venture deals in China have been plummeting as investors pull back amid escalating trade tensions and slowing economic growth. The value of investments in the country tumbled 77% to $9.4 billion in the second quarter from a year earlier.“In an economy that’s slowing down, everything slows, including venture capital. There will definitely be a shakeout,” Lee said. “The positive side is that if the economy is challenging, and valuations are down, it’s a good time for us to go shopping.”Sinovation was one of the first Chinese venture capital firms with a presence in the U.S. With the trade war and the Trump administration’s tighter scrutiny of foreign investments, the firm has scaled back investments and no longer has an office in the U.S., Lee said, adding that investments in America have always been a small fraction of its overall investments.“In the long term, it’s a pity if we have to cause a total separation of two countries because one could argue that AI got to where it got because the whole world has been able to work together.”(Updates with analyst’s comment in the 9th paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Selina Wang in China at swang533@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Peter Elstrom, Colum MurphyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
Facebook failed to warn users of known risks before 2018 breach: court filing
The lawsuit, which combined several legal actions, stems from Facebook Inc's worst-ever security breach in September, when hackers stole login codes - or "access tokens" - that allowed them to access nearly 29 million accounts. "Facebook knew about the access token vulnerability and failed to fix it for years, despite that knowledge," the plaintiffs said in a heavily redacted section of the filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco. Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
- Bloomberg
Facebook Tells Chat Users Nothing About Human Listeners
(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. this week confirmed that it ran a program to allow contractors to listen to and transcribe some users’ audio clips. The social network said that the only people who were affected were those who agreed to have their audio messages transcribed.That makes it sound like users agreed to have their chats read by third parties. But based on a look at the Messenger permissions pop-up dialogue box, they didn’t.In the Messenger mobile app, as soon as someone sends a voice message, they get a prompt asking, “Turn on Voice to Text in this chat?” Above the “No” and “Yes” buttons, Facebook describes the option: “Display text of voice clips you send and receive. You can control whether text is visible to you for each chat.”There is no mention of human involvement. Even in a separate information page in the app dedicated to understanding Voice to Text, Facebook explains that users can turn it off for each chat, and prompts people to use it more. “Voice to Text uses machine learning,” it says. “The more you use this feature, the more Voice to Text can help you.” There’s no explanation that machine learning doesn’t just involve software code.Companies including Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Google have been relying on humans to check and improve their artificial intelligence systems -- they’re just not telling their users about it. That’s a critical lapse at a time when all of the companies -- especially Facebook -- are facing regulatory scrutiny for privacy lapses. The Irish Data Protection Commissioner, which enforces European Union privacy laws, said it was looking into Facebook’s transcription practices.“AI just isn’t at the level yet where it can interpret human conversation,” meaning the companies need to rely on monitoring to help train the systems, said Jennifer King, director of consumer privacy at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society. “But the big issue from my perspective is the non-disclosure. Users clearly don’t know it’s happening.”The report on Facebook’s human transcription program raised the ire of U.S. lawmakers, some of whom were already calling for stronger privacy protections than those imposed by a $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission approved last month. Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, said the latest revelation about Facebook’s audio collection “is yet further proof that consumers’ expectations of how their data is collected and used radically differ from what companies like Facebook are actually doing.”Some privacy lawyers suggested the lack of disclosure ran afoul of the company’s settlement with the FTC. That agreement, which resolved known conduct before June 12, bars misrepresentations by Facebook about user privacy controls, third-party access to user data and how information is collected, used and disclosed."Absent some other disclosure to users regarding the human listening, I do believe it is likely this is a violation of the order in the case," said Mark McCreary, chief privacy officer at law firm Fox Rothschild LLP.(Updates with comments from privacy lawyer in final paragraphs.)To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Frier in San Francisco at sfrier1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Andrew PollackFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
3 Tech Stocks for Dividend Investors to Buy Amid Yield Curve & Trade Fears
Check out these 3 dividend paying tech stocks to buy as yield curve and trade war fears heat up...
- Zacks
Top Ranked Tech ETFs in Focus
Technology is still the best performing sector this year despite trade tensions and global growth concerns
- Reuters
Instagram adds tool for users to flag false information
Instagram is adding an option for users to report posts they think are false, the company announced on Thursday, as the Facebook-owned photo-sharing site tries to stem misinformation and other abuses on its platform. Posting false information is not banned on any of Facebook's suite of social media services, but the company is taking steps to limit the reach of inaccurate information and warn users about disputed claims. Facebook started using image-detection on Instagram in May to find content debunked on its flagship app and also expanded its third-party fact-checking program to the app.
- Reuters
Vietnam says Facebook steps up local content restrictions
Facebook is restricting access to increasing amounts of content in Vietnam, a government official said on Thursday, as the Southeast Asian country ramps up a campaign to tighten access to the internet. The social media platform is widely used in Vietnam where, despite sweeping economic reform and increasing openness to social change, the ruling Communist Party continues to censor media tightly and does not tolerate criticism. "Facebook now meets 70 to 75% of the Vietnamese government's requests, compared to around 30% earlier, information minister Nguyen Manh Hung said at a parliament meeting in Hanoi.
- Market Realist
Rising Zero-Click Searches Put Spotlight on Google’s Dominance
Zero-click searches on Google reached an all-time high of 50.3% in June. This finding could raise more questions about its dominance of the Internet search market.
- TechCrunch
US legislator, David Cicilline, joins international push to interrogate platform power
US legislator David Cicilline will be joining the next meeting of theInternational Grand Committee on Disinformation and 'Fake News', it has beenannounced
- TechCrunch
How Facebook does IT
If you have ever worked at any sizable company, the word "IT" probably doesn'tconjure up many warm feelings
- Reuters
Democratic senator asks Facebook CEO if he gave 'incomplete' testimony
Democratic U.S. Senator Gary Peters on Thursday asked Facebook Inc's chief to answer questions about his April 2018 congressional testimony in light of reports that Facebook captured audio from users and sent it to a vendor to be analyzed and transcribed. "I asked you specifically if Facebook uses audio obtained from mobile devices to enrich personal information about its users. Your emphatic answer was no," Peters wrote in a letter to Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg.
- Bloomberg
Facebook's Listening Stirs Senator's Ire Over Zuckerberg Remarks
(Bloomberg) -- Democratic Senator Gary Peters of Michigan cast doubt about Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony amid revelations that Facebook Inc. has been paying contractors to transcribe audio clips from its users.Peters’s comments, which followed a Bloomberg report that the company used the transcriptions to improve its speech-recognition technology, come as smartphones and other microphone-enabled devices become ever-more ubiquitous."I am concerned that your previous testimony before Congress appears to have been, at best, incomplete,” Peters said in a letter sent Thursday to the Facebook chief executive officer that requested more information about the report.During Zuckerberg’s testimony in April 2018, Peters asked the CEO whether "Facebook uses audio obtained from mobile devices to enrich personal information about its users," according to the senator’s letter. Zuckerberg called the notion a "conspiracy theory" and denied the company uses the audio for its ads business.Peters was referring to a theory that Facebook listens to conversations through a phone’s microphone and related permissions. Bloomberg reported on a narrower activity: Contractors transcribed users’ audio messages from the Facebook Messenger chat app. Still, members of Congress from both parties called the company out this week and urged new statutes to combat threats to privacy."Congress needs to pass tough rules that ensure that Americans don’t have our privacy repeatedly violated by unaccountable corporations," Senator Ron Wyden said in a statement. The Oregon Democrat, who last year circulated draft legislation that would impose steep fines and even prison time for executives who fail to adequately safeguard Americans’ personal data, said Zuckerberg "must be held personally responsible for Facebook’s serial privacy offenses."Wyden also slammed the company’s recent $5 billion settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over privacy violations. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, one of tech’s foremost Republican critics, asked in a series of tweets whether Facebook’s audio collection violated the agreement with the FTC.On Wednesday, the Irish Data Protection Commission, which oversees Facebook in Europe, said it was examining the activity for possible violations of the EU’s strict privacy rules.Congress, inspired partially by Facebook’s high-profile lapses, has spent months working on a federal privacy bill that could also tackle the handling of voice recordings, but a key group of legislators working on the bill has fallen apart after it missed a number of self-imposed deadlines, and progress on the bill has stalled.Facebook is not the only company that might be affected by new privacy rules. Bloomberg reported in April that Amazon employed a team of thousands of people around the world who listened to recordings picked up by Alexa and checked them for accuracy to improve the software. Humans were also brought in to review voice assistant recordings at Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Apple Inc., which both courted controversy for not making the practice clear to users.Democratic Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts cited Bloomberg’s reporting in July in announcing his plan to introduce a bill to allow the FTC "to seek penalties when digital personal assistants and smart doorbells record private conversations of users who haven’t said the device’s wake word or phrase." Moulton, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said his bill would impact companies like Amazon, which also owns the smart doorbell company Ring.Senator Mark Warner said the latest revelations about Facebook’s audio collection "is yet further proof that consumers’ expectations of how their data is collected and used radically differ from what companies like Facebook are actually doing." Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, called for legislation to require companies to disclose more detail about their data collection, use and sharing.\--With assistance from Matt Day.To contact the reporters on this story: Ben Brody in Washington at btenerellabr@bloomberg.net;Sarah Frier in San Francisco at sfrier1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, ;Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Anne VanderMeyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Motley Fool
Facebook's Growth Reaccelerates but the Stock Drops. Time to Buy?
Don’t overlook the currently unloved social media leader after its Q2 2019 sell-off.
- Market Realist
French Digital Tax: Google Worries about Disputes
Google (GOOGL) thinks that the French digital tax could generate disputes about whether or not the revenues come from France.
- TechCrunch
Daily Crunch: Final Oculus co-founder departs Facebook
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch's roundup of our biggest and most important stories. Nate Mitchell, the final Oculus co-founder remaining at Facebook, announced in an internal memo that he's leaving the company and "taking time to travel, be with family, and recharge." His role within the company has shifted several times since Oculus was acquired, but his current title is head of product management for virtual reality. This follows the departures of former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe and co-founder Palmer Luckey.
- Yahoo Finance
Author explores Koch Industries, a company that specializes in the stuff that underpins civilization
Koch Industries possesses a complicated legacy, one which has seen its leadership both celebrated and vilified for the better part its eighty-year history. What does the future hold for the enormous conglomerate?
- TechCrunch
'Private' and 'hidden' mean different things to Facebook
Facebook's leadership made a pretty heavy-handed indication this year that itbelieves Facebook Groups are the future of the app
- Motley Fool
After Hours: FTC Considering Tech Giant Breakups, The RealReal Beats on Q2 Estimates
Not for the first time, America's famous tech behemoths seem to be in regulators' crosshairs; The RealReal, meanwhile, posts its first quarterly figures as a publicly traded company.
