Facebook (FB) Announces Expanded 'Buy Button' Beta Trial; SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Reiterates Buy

SunTrust Robinson Humphrey reiterates a Buy rating and $100.00 price target on Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) following the announced "Buy Button" Beta trial Expansion.

Analyst Robert Peck commented, "Facebook announced yesterday that it has expanded its Beta trial of its new ecommerce initiative (i.e. the "Buy Button"). According to Shopify's blog (link), following testing that goes back to July ’14, Facebook will allow an expanded set of Shopify clients (from a variety of businesses) the ability to create ads that can provide transactions for consumers directly in an advertisement. This follows almost a year of the initial beta and the recent announcement by Pinterest of Buyable Pins. Importantly, this expanded beta is running ahead of the important 4Q holiday season."

Peck also added, "According to our estimates, we think that this new ad unit (i.e., the Buy Button) could not only expand the activity of current retail/ecommerce advertisers but also open a new segment of advertisers that are more "direct response" ecommerce companies. The buy button could be combined with ad units like the carousel to display sets of highly targeted products. Further, Instagram recently announced its ads would open to all advertisers following an extended beta period. We note that the Instagram platform has long been used to “advertise” products and could also be a natural fit for a buy button."

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Facebook click here. For more ratings news on Facebook click here.

Shares of Facebook closed at $82.16 yesterday.

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