Facebook is going to close this year with a big surprise.
The social media corporate’s stock hits a new all-time high of $81.89 a share in midday trading Monday, an increase of about 2.5% on the day, which pushed its market value to nearly $230 billion.
The sudden increase in Facebook stock came amid a broader market rally. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up as much as 0.47% in early trading. The Standard & Poor’s 500 was essentially flat on the day, but still hovering near an all-time high.
Facebook is gaining more followers as Instagram is now worth $35 billion, up from the $1 billion that Facebook originally agreed to pay to acquire it in 2012. That figure, combined with a recent announcement that Instagram has hit 300 million users, may be the important factor to boost people’s optimism for Facebook’s other major acquisitions, WhatsApp and Oculus VR.
This condition is quite far from two years ago when Facebook was struggling to climb back up to its IPO price of $38 a share amid nagging concerns from investors about its potential to make a successful shift to mobile. Facebook has consistently beaten Wall Street estimates throughout 2014, thanks to the formidable strength of its advertising products (especially the mobile ads), which accounted for two-thirds of total ad revenue in the third quarter.
Facebook is now second only to Google in the U.S. mobile ad market and it is expected to take 8% of the $140 billion global ad market this year.
