MW Facebook crosses $1 trillion mark after judge dismisses FTC antitrust suit
By Emily Bary
Social-media giant becomes the fifth U.S. company to achieve the milestone valuation
Facebook Inc. vaulted into trillion-dollar territory Monday as a late-afternoon stock rally helped power the company past the milestone valuation mark.
Shares of Facebook (FB) gained 4.2% in Monday's session after a federal judge opted to dismiss an antitrust case that the Federal Trade Commission had brought against the social-media giant. The judge determined that the FTC didn't provide enough facts to back up the argument that Facebook is a social-networking monopoly, and the FTC now has 30 days to file an amended version of the suit.
See more: Judge dismisses Facebook antitrust suit brought by FTC
Facebook and other Big Tech companies have come under increasing scrutiny from regulators, but the judge's determination Monday indicates potentially steeper hurdles for regulatory bodies looking to clamp down on tech giants.
Facebook closed the trading day with a market cap of $1,008,404.77, according to Dow Jones Market Data, becoming just the fifth U.S. company to cross the $1 trillion valuation threshold. The company stands behind Apple Inc. $(AAPL)$, Microsoft Corp. $(MSFT)$, Amazon.com Inc. $(AMZN)$, and Google parent Alphabet Inc. $(GOOGL)$(GOOGL). It's been a momentous past few days for Big Tech market-cap milestones, as Microsoft broke through the $2 trillion barrier last week.
See also: Microsoft closes with valuation above $2 trillion, becoming second U.S. company to do so
Facebook's market cap hit a 2020 low of $416.2 billion last March and the company has added more than $592 billion to its valuation since then, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The market-cap gains since Facebook's pandemic bottom are worth more than the entire market caps of Visa Inc. (V), Nvidia Corp. $(NVDA)$ and JPMorgan Chase & Co. $(JPM)$, also per Dow Jones Market Data.
Shares of Facebook have rallied 65% over the past 12 months as the the S&P 500 has risen 43%.
-Emily Bary; 415-439-6400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com
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June 28, 2021 16:42 ET (20:42 GMT)
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