There is growing enthusiasm for Facebook stock on the part of some PMs and equity analysts, Reuters' Ross Kerber writes, citing fund firms, Kornitzer Capital Management [profile] , Thrivent Financial [profile] and Manning & Napier [profile].

Kerper reports that Nabil Eisheshal, a senior equity analyst for Thrivent Financial, was reluctant to buy Facebook at first, but after doing some quantitative research and noticing ads on his personal Facebook, he thought the company was getting its act together. The Thrivent Large Cap Growth Portfolio bought 572,200 shares of the company in June, Kerber writes.

Chris Carter, co-PM of Korntizer Capital Management's Buffalo Growth Fund, said the fund bought Facebook shares last year and added more this year, bringing the number of shares to 370,600. Like Eisheshal, the epiphany to buy shares started while using his personal Facebook. He saw ads on his iPhone Facebook app, Kerber reports.

Jay Welles, senior equity analyst at Manning & Napier is a LinkedIn, not Facebook, enthusiast. He made the decision to recommend buying shares in the spring after seeing the site's traffic as he doesn't use Facebook, Kerber writes. The firm had 442,520 shares in July, up from April's 198,660. Kerber quotes Welles as saying, "We felt the user base was very sticky. Facebook had a lot of hooks with the users."

To read more, click here. 

Edited by: Casey Quinlan


Stay ahead of the news ... Sign up for our email alerts now
CLICK HERE