Facebook recoups its earlier losses as Zuckerberg's second day of Congressional testimony continues (FB)

pulse

April 11, 2018 2:51 PM

The CEO said Tuesday that Facebook usage had not been affected by the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The stock rose nearly 5% Tuesday during the five hour joint meeting of the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees.

Shares of Facebook are back in the green Wednesday afternoon, at $166.61, after initially sinking into the red as CEO Mark Zuckerberg prepares to take the stand at around 10:30 a.m. ET for his second day of questioning by Congressional lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The stock surged three percent during his first five hours of questioning before a joint meeting of the Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees on Monday, ending the day up 4.95% at $165.04.

The 33-year-old kept his cool during thelengthy meeting Monday, despite a barrage of questions from lawmakers regarding Facebook's mounting scandals, including the misappropriation of up to 87 million users' profile data by Cambridge Analytica and Russia's use of the platform to spread propaganda and misinformation.

"Mr. Zuckerberg appeared well prepared and delivered his answers in a congenial manner, while most of the senators in attendance didn't seem to have a granular enough understanding of the issue to move past surface-level issues," Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein wrote in a note to clients.

At the end of his testimony, Zuckerberg confirmed that there had been no change in Facebook usage as a result of the scandal, something Wall Street analysts had theorized would be the case. He also said at least one Facebook employee had been interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller's office as part of its investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

Since the scandal first hit markets on March 19, Facebook's stock price has declined by more than 10%, which translates to roughly $58.25 billion in lost market value for the social network.

You can follow Business Insider's coverage of today's proceedings here, which will be updated as the meeting progresses.

pulse