Facebook Strikes Back, Apple Sells More Devices Than The Population Of 217 Countries

Stefan and the rest of our awesome curation and content team at Stocktwits are putting together some very topical, catch’upie’ posts on the week that was.  Look for much more content like this on Yahoo Finance in the coming weeks as well.  We will be spotlighting sentiment, smart peeps thoughts and ‘chart art’.  As always, please share feedback and ideas.

The biggest story on StockTwits this week is Facebook ($FB). Investor sentiment is nearing its highest levels of the year. At earnings, Facebook exceeded Wall Street’s expectations and they showed glimpses of mastery in the mobile universe. It now appears that only one night was needed to trigger a turnaround in a stock previously plagued by a mishandled IPO. Watching this all unfold and we find ourselves reminiscing of a certain kid in a standing crane position.

On StockTwits, @vader7x pointed out the incredible growth that Facebook continues to see on the mobile front:

And @Vconomics highlights the growth that Facebook sees around the world in daily active users:

Then there is Facebook Sentiment. The best part about this chart is the huge run it had two weeks BEFORE it reported:

We never thought we’d say this, but on a percentage change basis, the Facebook earnings report garnered more interest than Apple’s earnings report. Apple just ain’t what it used to be. Facebook message volume on StockTwits more than tripled during its earnings while Apple’s doubled.

Everyone seemed to love this report from @Cristi in which he compared Apple ($AAPL) to J.P. Morgan Chase ($JPM), “Despite similar earnings, Apple market cap is 400Bn, while Chase is only 210Bn. And Apple’s earnings are going down, while Chase’s are going up.”:

But the only chart that really seems to matter right now for Apple is its profit margins, which are set to make 5-year lows next quarter:

Although @vcutrader did remind us about Apple’s newly found shareholder friendliness. They rained $18.8 billion in dividends and buybacks on investors:

And they’re still selling iPhones at a rate that should eventually lead to world domination:

What else happened this week?

– Ford Motors conducted an awesome Q&A with the StockTwits community

– Kid Dynamite had an EPIC exposé on the “Precious Metals Charlatans”

– Dan Loeb sold nearly all of his stake in $YHOO back to Yahoo!

– Wells Fargo broke its post-Lehman high

– Caterpillar’s disappointing earnings are good for Jim Chanos

– A very interesting study from @CVecchioFX –> The S&P 500 versus the distance from its 200-SMA

– On Wednesday, of the 5 Top Trending Tickers on StockTwits after the closing bell 3 of them, $BIDU $FB $TRIP, were up more than 10%. The other two, $V $QCOM, were up 3%

– Amazon confuses us all: Example 1, Example 2,  Example 3