Living in Twitter’s Shadow Is Virtual Reality for Facebook Stock

As Facebook Inc. dominates the news again today with another acquisition, it raises the question: will deals like this be enough to help the stock finally start beating rival Twitter Inc.?

Twitter has rallied 84 percent since it went public in November, almost triple Facebook’s 32 percent gain over the same time through yesterday. Both have dwarfed the less-than 10 percent gain in the Russell 1000 Technology Index. While Facebook has performed better this year, it still doesn’t beat Twitter if you start the chart when it went public in May 2012. The shares are up 71 percent since then.