10 April 2018: Zuckerberg testifies and Facebook stock rises
Facing the Senate on April 10, 2018 over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, Mark Zuckerberg spent hours answering questions, some of which revealed how little senators understood about how Facebook made money. Investors concluded that serious regulation was not imminent and the shares climbed roughly 4.5% that day, adding billions in market value. A congressional grilling turned into one of Facebook's better trading days of the year.
The lesson: Markets react to what is likely to change, not to how uncomfortable the hearing looks on television.
What it meant for investors
$1,000 in Facebook / Meta at the start of 2018 → $3,889 today, vs $2,519 in the S&P 500.
We start the clock at the start of 2018, the year it happened. That is 3.9 times the money, and $1,370 more than a plain index fund made over the same years.
What Facebook / Meta teaches: Founder control cuts both ways: Zuckerberg's unchecked authority produced brilliant acquisitions and an expensive metaverse detour, and shareholders could vote on neither.
| Bought in | Price then | Worth today | S&P 500 would be |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | $78.00 | $8,974 | $3,301 |
| 2018 | $180 | $3,889 | $2,519 |
| 2020 | $210 | $3,333 | $2,092 |
green = beat the S&P 500 · red = lost money
What if you bought Facebook / Meta? Every starting year and the full story →
More Facebook / Meta history
- 3 February 2022: Meta loses a record chunk of value in a day
- 9 April 2012: Facebook buys Instagram for $1 billion
- 18 May 2012: Facebook's bumpy IPO
- 26 July 2018: Facebook loses about $119 billion in a day
- 4 October 2021: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp go dark for hours
Could you have called it at the time? The wheel picks the year, you pick the position, ten seconds a pick.
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