Facebook shares fell 24%. The company was worth $150 billion less

Shares of the social network Facebook fell by 24% immediately after the close of main trading in the United States. The company's quarterly financial report was worse than most analysts expected.

For one of the most valuable companies in the world, this means that Facebook shareholders lost a total of about $150 billion in just a few minutes. Before the earnings announcement, Facebook shares were at an all-time high; in 2018 they grew by 23%.

Facebook said in a report that its revenue for the quarter rose 42% to $13.2 billion. Analysts had expected that figure to rise to 13.3 billion, marking the first time since 2015 that Facebook's results were worse than analysts had expected.

Facebook's audience amounted to 1.47 billion users who used the social network every day. At the same time, in Europe the number of such users decreased by three million, while in the USA and Canada it remained unchanged.

• In 2018, Facebook found itself at the center of several scandals related to both data leaks and failure to prevent interference in the American elections. Until recently, this did not affect the price of Facebook shares.