Investors ‘like’ Facebook, and put their money behind it

It suffered a rocky premiere on the open market last year, but the numbers don’t lie: investors “like” Facebook.

“Google has become a verb … but Facebook’s bigger than that,” Rocco Pendola of TheStreet.com said on CNN’s “The Lead.”

Investors indicated the friendship between them and the tech giant was strong by snapping up the stock, sending it up 25% on Thursday after a strong second quarter earnings report came out late Wednesday.

The company beat analysts’ predictions, posting revenue of $1.8 billion and righting its balance sheet by posting net income rather than losses. It prompted major market-watchers to reevaluate their target price for the stock significantly upwards.

Pendola explained that the company answered questions about their ability to monetize the mobile platform.

“Nearly half a billion people check their Facebook every single day on mobile devices only - that’s not even counting the desktop,” he explained. “It’s a mass appeal brand and that’s going to obviously draw on the advertising dollars, which is the reason why the stock went up so much yesterday in after hours and then again today.”

Now, he sees Facebook’s mobile advertising platform as “pretty impressive,” but acknowledged the site may have ongoing work on their plate to keep their edge, ahead of Google, Twitter, Pandora and even Apple.

“The question you have to ask, though, is can they keep it up?” he said. “Are they getting low hanging fruits? Right now, there’s only a few big players.

“Once more players come in fighting for mobile dollars, the growth that Facebook experiences might not be like we saw this last quarter,” he said.