Facebook beat earnings Zuckerberg wants to show Wall Street who’s boss

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Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg smiles at the conclusion of his testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill April 11, 2018 in Washington, DC.

Facebook shares, which closed at $163.87 on Thursday, have dropped more than 11 percent over the past month on news that a political research firm, Cambridge Analytica, was able to access the personal data of millions of Facebook users for political marketing. Facebook is still up more than 17 percent over the past year, however.

Zuckerberg has been under intense scrutiny, testifying to Congressional lawmakers about Facebook’s privacy practices. He was grilled about Facebook’s fundamental business model, the way it uses data and what kind of regulation may be appropriate.

Seaburg acknowledged that his studies show Facebook engagement has trended downward quarter-over-quarter since the beginning of 2017.

“You have to look at it more year-over-year,” he said. “Take the cyclicality out of the equation. I will say to you the surveys we’ve done from an ad buyer perspective and the clients we’re talking to — they’re really waiting for this quarter’s earnings to come out.”