On Friday, the shares of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) increased
by $0.90. This advance came after Mark May, an analyst from Citigroup,
reiterated a Buy rating on the stock. He also raised his price target to $97
from $91. May cited revenue potential as the reason for his bullish rating of
the social media giant. That is, the two companies that Facebook acquired,
Instagram and WhatsApp, are the drivers that will help to boost Facebook’s
potential user growth and future revenue. Recently, Facebook began testing the
integration of WhatsApp onto Android phones as well as onto its platform. This
marks the first sign of WhatsApp on the social media site since the app was
purchased over a year ago. Meanwhile, there have been reports that both
companies are working together to provide a deeper integration of the two
products which will then enable users to send messages between WhatsApp and
Facebook Messenger. Also, while Instagram has over 300 million users, with more
than seventy percent based outside the U.S., the photo sharing application has
yet to bring in significant revenue for Facebook. Over the next few years, the
platform is looking to expand its advertising efforts while it is currently
implementing advertising on its Canadian and Australian platforms. Mark May has
rated Facebook eight times since the middle of 2013 and he has earned a success
rate of 86 percent when it comes to recommending the social media giant.
With the markets closed in the U.S. on Friday for the Easter
holiday, the March nonfarm payrolls report showed that the country created the
fewest new jobs in 15 months. With such a big decline in the hiring of people,
the question now stands as to whether the U.S. economy is simply suffering with
a temporary setback or if a broader slowdown is underway. Data released by the
Labor Department showed that for March, the economy generated only 126,000 new
jobs. This broke the streak of 12 straight months of gains of 200,000. The
March NFP data also marked the smallest gain since December 2013 while the
report also showed that the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.5
percent. While the U.S. markets were closed, the stock futures (ESM5, -0.66%)
declined after the report. With such disappointing results, the question now
arises as to when we can expect the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates.
Most analysts now expect the Fed to wait until the end of summer before raising
rates for the first time since 2006.
In forex trading on Friday in Asia, the U.S. dollar (USD)
traded higher. Trading was thin due to the Easter holiday while investors also
shifted their attention to the U.S. jobs data as well as the nuclear deal with
Iran. The AUD/USD traded at 0.7578, down 0.18 percent while the EUR/USD traded
down 0.11% at 1.0869. According to Reuters, on Wednesday, Greece advised its
creditors that the country could run out of money on the 9th of April. On this
date, Greece will owe a payment to the IMF (International Monetary Fund) of
€450 million. While Greece might successfully be able to repay government
pensions and salaries and also to meet its obligations to the IMF, it currently
looks as if the country will not be able to do either of them. In other
currency trading, against the Japanese yen, the USD held steady with USD/JPY
trading at 119.71, down 0.01 percent. Also, the U.S. dollar index rose to
97.83, up 0.05 percent.
In Asian trading on Monday, crude oil prices gained. Crude
oil for May delivery traded at $49.67 a barrel, up 0.29 percent, on the NYMEX.
Meanwhile, last week, crude oil prices dropped sharply on Thursday. This came
after a tentative nuclear deal was negotiated by the Western powers with Iran
which could add more crude oil to a market that is already oversupplied. On
Thursday, Brent crude for delivery in May traded at $54.95 a barrel, down 3.77%
or $2.15, on the ICE Futures Exchange in London.
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