Shares of Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) helped to lift the tech sector Monday, up nearly three per cent after the company was upgraded to an outperform rating by Raymond James.
Facebook's stock was up 2.84 per cent as at about 2:45 p.m. EDT, trading at $32.44.
The company, set to release its fourth quarter results late Wednesday, was upgraded by Raymond James analyst Aaron Kessler, based on expectations for increasing monetization of new and mobile services.
In its third quarter, Facebook grew mobile advertising revenue despite posting a loss of $59 million, or 2 cents per share. Excluding special items, Facebook earned $311 million, or 12 cents per share, in the third quarter, a penny better than analysts were expecting.
Revenue rose 32 per cent to $1.26 billion, also higher than the $1.23 billion that analysts polled by FactSet had expected.
The world's biggest social media company disclosed that 14 per cent of its advertising revenue came from the mobile segment.
Facebook did not provide guidance for the current quarter or beyond, but analysts are calling for per share earnings of 15 cents on revenue of $1.52 billion.
Earlier this month, according to data from social media monitoring company SocialBakers, Americans using Facebook fell by nearly 1.4 million in early December.