TECH STOCKS: Facebook Sentiment Spotlights Tech-sector Action

By Rex Crum, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Facebook Inc. led the action in tech stocks Thursday, as the social-networking giant shook off early losses and investors put more weight on its third-quarter results than comments from Facebook's chief financial officer about its advertising business.

Facebook (FB) ended the day with a gain of 2.4%, to close at $50.20 a share, highlighting reaction to the company's results late Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Facebook shares slipped as investors keyed in on comments by Chief Financial Officer David Ebersman regarding a decrease in daily users among younger teenagers, and that the company doesn't expect to significantly increase "the quality and relevance" of its Newsfeed ads in the fourth quarter.

However, some analysts, such as Carlos Kirjner, of Bernstein Research, said that Ebersman's comments hint that Facebook my have to soon raise prices on its ads.

"With user growth decelerating, Newsfeed ad load steady, and multiple data-points suggesting that engagement in developed markets is not growing significantly, revenue growth has to come increasingly from rising price-per-ad," Kirjner said.

BMO Capital Markets analyst Daniel Salmon cut his rating on Facebook's stock to market perform, or neutral, from outperform, mostly due to what he called "the lack of visibility around Facebook's opportunity in Social TV advertising."

Advancers included Yahoo Inc. (YHOO), Netflix Inc. (NFLX), Expedia Inc. (EXPE) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ).

The Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) ended a see-saw day by falling almost 11 points to 3,919, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index (SOX) managed to climb by 0.6%.

One notable decliner was networking equipment maker JDSU (JDSUD), which fell more than 11% to close at $13.09. Late Wednesday, JDSU gave a fiscal second-quarter revenue forecast that fell short of Wall Street analysts' estimates.

Losses also came from Apple Inc. (AAPL), Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Pandora Media Inc. (P) and Groupon Inc. (GRPN).

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