Facebook replaces Teradyne in the S&P 500 Index

It seems that Facebook has put an end to the hard time it experienced after last years disappointing initial public offering. The company announced that it will join the benchmark Standard & Poors 500 Index (SPX) next week, replacing Teradyne Inc., a manufacturer of products for testing computer chips worth $3.2 billion.

The replacement will happen at the close of trading on December the 20th. Analysts were led to believe it is a vote of confidence in Facebook, after the biggest social media managed to achieve a full year of profitability and met the requirements of Standard & Poors 500 Index. After Facebooks initial public offering in May 2012, some of its investors called its growth prospects into question. This resulted in the company loosing more than half its value, but it now seems to be regaining its strength.

Jason Benowitz, whose company owns Facebook shares, said: “Including Facebook in the S&P 500 represents that the social network is here to stay and it will remain relevant to users, advertisers and developers for the foreseeable future. As the company proved it could adapt to mobile and continue to capture users, it also proved that it has staying power.”

The market value of Facebook has reached 123 billion dollars, which is more than double compared to last year. The company is guaranteed a base of shareholders from funds that follow the indexes will be provided to Facebook when entering the benchmark gauges.

Daniel Ernst, an analysts working for Hudson Square Research, said for Bloomberg: “Theres a certain degree of establishment that comes with it. Facebook is absolutely established, with a billion users worldwide, some of the highest operating margin metrics, and theyre still growing.”

S&P500 will add Facebook to its Internet software and services sub-industry index and place it alongside Google Inc., Ebay Inc. and Yahoo! Inc. In addition, Facebook is the first company that manages to enter the S&P 500 among the ones that had their initial public offerings in the past three years. This fact gives it a small head start compared to LinkedIn Corp., Yelp Inc. and Twitter Inc. In addition, Facebook has already become a member of the Russell 1000 Index, the MSCI World Index, and the Nasdaq-100 Index.

On the NASDAQ, Facebook Inc.s shares fell by 1.72% on Wednesday to settle at $49.3800, but its one-year return rate is up 79.04%.

The 39 analysts surveyed by CNN Money offering 12-month price forecasts for Facebook Inc. have a median target of $60.00, with a high estimate of $72.50 and a low estimate of $42.00. The median estimate represents a +21.51% increase from the last closing price of $49.38.