Facebook tops Street 1Q forecasts

Facebook Inc. (FB) on Wednesday reported first-quarter profit of $3.06 billion.

On a per-share basis, the Menlo Park, California-based company said it had profit of $1.04. This is above the 87 cents per share that analysts polled by FactSet had expected.

The social media company posted revenue of $8.03 billion in the period, also beating Street forecasts. Eleven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research expected $7.85 billion.

Facebook shares have climbed 32 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has climbed almost 7 percent. In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, shares hit $151.80, a climb of 29 percent in the last 12 months.

In after-hours trading, the company's shares fell $3.90, or 2.6 percent, to $147.90.

_____

Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on FB at https://www.zacks.com/ap/FB