Facebook Stock Costs Will Wipe Out Profit
At its current level of profitability, it will take Facebook Inc. until mid-2013 at the earliest to earn enough operating income just to offset its annual stock-compensation costs.
An analysis of the company’s latest securities filing reveals that unless Facebook significantly improves its operating margin, these costs — which totaled $2.3 billion as of Sept. 30 — will be enough to prevent the social network from earning a bottom-line profit for at least two more quarters.