Facebook's Market Valuation Crosses $100bn Once Again

Facebook's market valuation breached $100bn again as investors find renewed hope that the world's largest social network would further monetise its mobile offering.

Its stock price finished 1.9% higher at $41.34 in New York on Monday, but not before hitting a record high $41.94 in intra-day trading, valuing the company at $100.68bn (£64.89bn, €75.45bn)

Facebook's stock has surged some 60% so far this year while the Nasdaq Composite index, where the social network firm is traded, has logged a 24% gain.

The company's shares now command a high price-to-earnings ratio, trading at about 180 times earnings.

Facebook last had a market value of over $100bn on the day of its stock-market debut during May 2012, but concerns about slowing revenue and insider-selling cut the company's market value in half in the months that followed.

By early September, Facebook's shares had bottomed at $17.55.

"The market is gaining confidence that Facebook is going to be a viable profit-generating machine in the future," Laurence Balter, analyst at Oracle Investment Research, told Bloomberg. "People are checking their Facebook page more and more all the time.

Facebook's market capitalisation has increased by around $10bn across August.

On 30 July, the company's stock price surged 7% as traders exchanged 694,000 calls and 300,000 puts on Facebook that day.

The stock soared 17% on 25 July after the company posted strong second-quarter results reflecting an increase in monthly users and more importantly, mobile ad revenue.

Second quarter revenue jumped 53% to £1.81bn, far ahead of Wall Street analysts' predictions, as well as a 51% increase in monthly mobile users.

Facebook joins Apple, Google, Amazon and several other firms that command market valuations in excess of $100bn.

iPhone maker Apple is the most valuable US company with a market capitalisation of $456.92bn. Search giant Google commands a market value of $288.70bn while online retailer Amazon has a market value of $130.76bn. All three firms are traded on the Nasdaq index.