Goldman Sachs Comments on Facebook's (FB) Q3 and Guidance

Goldman Sachs reiterated a Buy rating on Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) with a price target of $85. The stock declined yesterday during its earnings call.

Analyst Heather Bellini said, "Given the registration of the WhatsApp shares, FB offered its first and likely last revenue guidance range for 4Q14 which at 40-47% yoy growth appears conservative in our view (consensus +45%). The bigger surprise was CY15 total expense guidance where FB guided to a range of 50-70%."

"FB has always been conservative here; at the start of 2013 it guided total expense growth to be 50% yoy, and ended at +44%. In 2014, it started at 40-45% and is now forecasted to be between 30-35%. We were modeling 2015 yoy growth in total expenses of 45% vs consensus of +37%. At the high-end, the incremental growth in total expenses would equate to almost the entire year’s level of total expenses in 2013 ($4.07bn)," added the analyst "We reiterate our Buy and maintain our $85, 12 month price target."

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 $80.77 yesterday.

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