Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO, shows off the new messaging system in Facebook. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Facebook Beats Expert Predictions

Facebook's 2012 third quarter earnings beat Wall Street's expert expectations, ending the quarter at $1.26 billion in revenue. Wall Street financial forecasting experts had predicted Facebook would close the quarter at $1.23 million in earnings. The social network has more than 1 billion members, including 600 million users who access the site through their mobile phones or other handheld digital devices.

Facebook, as the world's second most visited website and the leading social network, has been watched closely because the possibility of high Facebook earnings was seen as a possible boost to the stock market. The company's stock was first offered publicly in May, opening at $38 per share. By the end of the third quarter, this price had fallen to below $20 a share. This led Wall Street to predict lower Facebook earnings - $1.23 billion - than the recently released results show.

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Allstate Corp., the second largest home and auto insurance company in the United States, announced a significant fall in net income during its third quarter earnings call. The year-over-year loss of net income was significant; the company had posted $367 million in the previous third quarter, compared to $165 million this year. Despite losing 55 percent in net income, Allstate's third quarter earnings beat overall expectations, resulting in shares rising as much as 6% in after hours trading on Monday.