After social media behemoth Facebook (NASDAQ:$FB) reported blowout earnings last week, one analyst at a small research firm decided to double down on his negative call for the California-based company.
Pivotal Research has officially lowered its rating on Facebook from ‘Hold’ to ‘Sell’. Why? The firm believes it is facing digital ad saturation risk due to large companies “scrutinizing” their marketing budgets.
According to analyst Brian Wieser, “the market is looking at upside potential without appropriately considering risks to growth.” He added, “with every passing year, digital advertising is closer to a point where the market is saturated.”
Despite being one of the best-performing large-cap stocks in the market, on July 31, Wieser told CNBC the conditions surrounding Facebook “have gotten worse. You have political macro uncertainty. That’s not good for them. You have increasing problems with view-ability that marketers were mostly not aware of at all last year.”
As of right now, there is only one other Wall Street analyst (out of 40) that has a sell or underweight rating on Facebook, according to FactSet.
In midday trading on July 31, Facebook stock price dropped nearly 2%.
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