Facebook Shares Surge To Record High

Facebook shares surged more than three percent to a new high on Wednesday, as the social networking giant continued its positive upward trend on Wall Street.

Shares in the company closed at $45.04 (£28.47) on Nasdaq on Wednesday, after briefly hitting $45.07 (£28.53). That brings the stock to a high not seen since May 2012, when shares in the company closed at $45.04 (£28.52) on their very first day of public trading.

This share price also gives the Mark Zuckerberg’s company a very healthy market value of $106 billion (£67.1bn).

Mobile advertising

This latest share surge comes after Facebook’s shares in July reached $37.96 (£24.95). This was very close to the $38 (£24.95) per share that Facebook had set as its floatation price during its initial public offering (IPO) way back in May 2012.

Facebook has slowly worked its way back into the good books of both investors and Wall Street in general, as the social networking giant benefits from its growing mobile advertising revenue stream. For a time, Facebook was looking on disconsolately as its share price slumped downwards from its IPO high, thanks to a combination of poor financial results and share sell-offs by senior Facebook executives.

This significant growth in advertising revenues came despite previous studies that questioned the value of advertising on Facebook.

IPO Tribulations

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg was quoted by Reuters as saying the IPO process had made Facebook stronger by forcing it to better understand the various aspects of its business. Zuckerberg was speaking at a technology conference in San Francisco on Wednesday.

“Having gone through what I think most people would characterise as an extremely turbulent first year as a public company, I can tell you I actually don’t think it’s that bad,” said Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg also apparently noted that his fears of employee defections and low morale due to the slumping stock price were overblown. And he also reportedly said that he had mistakenly been convinced that staying privately held for so long was the best strategy for the company.

“In retrospect, I was too afraid of going public,” Zuckerberg reportedly said at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.

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