Facebook Falls Most in 9 Months as Blistering Growth Set to Slow
- Revenue growth rates will come down ‘meaniningfully’ next year
- Third-quarter sales grew 56 percent, topping estimates
Facebook Beats Expectations...So Why Are Shares Falling?
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Facebook Inc. shares slumped the most in nine months after executives suggested the company probably won’t be able to keep up with its explosive pace of growth much longer.
The stock dropped as much as 5.5 percent Thursday morning after two sobering comments on its conference call the night before. First, Chief Financial Officer David Wehner said revenue growth rates will come down “meaningfully” next year, because the company won’t keep increasing the percentage of ads that Facebook users see in their news feed. Second, capital expenditures will rise “substantially” in 2017 as the social network works to build data centers and recruit the best engineers, he said.