What Does the Facebook Growth Story Look Like?

Apparently, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) did not get invited to the market rally party on Friday. Shares were off as much as 3 percent while the markets soared around it and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) hit a fresh all-time high. Analysts and investors are apparently punishing the stock for its fourth-quarter and full-year 2012 results, which were released on Wednesday after the markets closed.

Ostensibly, the results were good. In fact, 40.1 percent revenue growth to $1.58 billion beat estimates for $1.53 billion, and earnings growth of 13.3 percent to $0.17 per share beat estimates for $0.15. Monthly active users climbed 25 percent year over year and daily active users were up 28 percent. Perhaps most importantly, mobile revenue increased 9 points to 23 percent of total ad revenue, a tremendous step in the right direction.

But behind the strong numbers were bad news bears, grumbling about shrinking margins, climbing costs, and a fuzzy monetization strategy.