Facebook shares close higher on Friday, company resolves issue that led to global outage of its services

Facebook Inc (FB) has resolved a technical issue, which led to a global outage of its services, including Instagram.

Reports in the media stated that the issue had affected Facebook’s online messaging services Whatsapp and Messenger as well.

According to outage tracking website Downdetector.com, more than 1 million users had complained about having issues with Instagram and almost 20,000 people had reported issues with WhatsApp.

Facebook shares closed higher for the sixth time in the past ten trading sessions on NASDAQ on Friday. It has also been the sharpest single-session gain since November 4th 2020. The stock went up 4.12% ($11.49) to $290.11, after touching an intraday high at $292.75, or a price level not seen since November 6th 2020 ($294.60).

Shares of Facebook Inc have risen 6.21% so far in 2021 compared with a 4.18% gain for the benchmark index, S&P 500 (SPX).

In 2020, Facebook Inc’s stock went up 33.09%, thus, it again outperformed the S&P 500, which registered a 16.26% gain.

Analyst stock price forecast and recommendation

According to CNN Money, the 44 analysts, offering 12-month forecasts regarding Facebook Inc’s stock price, have a median target of $350.00, with a high estimate of $418.00 and a low estimate of $220.00. The median estimate represents a 20.64% upside compared to the closing price of $290.11 on March 19th.

The same media also reported that at least 39 out of 50 surveyed investment analysts had rated Facebook Inc’s stock as “Buy”, while 5 – as “Hold”. On the other hand, 2 analysts had recommended selling the stock.