Founded in by brothers Tom and David Gardner, The Motley Fool helps millions of people attain financial freedom through our website, podcasts, books, newspaper column, radio show, and premium investing services. In just 13 years, social network Facebook NASDAQ: Its stock has handily outperformed the broader stock market since its IPO.

That said, Facebook's stock chart only tells what the company has already done, rather than providing information about what the market thinks it will do in the future. Here are a few of the most commonly used financial metrics for the social media heavyweight:.

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If you think you want to buy Facebook stock, you'll first need an online brokerage account that you can use to buy stocks. You'll also want to check out this Motley Fool guide on how to buy a stock.

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The point guide starts with understanding how stocks make money and ends with following up on your investments. Then, before you decide to pull the trigger on buying Facebook stock, you need to understand the business and its long-term investing thesis. Read on for help with that.

Though online social networks had existed for some time, Facebook was the first tech company to truly nail the implementation across a host of important aspects.

Facebook's user interface easily beat those of then-rivals Friendster and MySpace. Moreover, timing also worked in the company's favor, emerging as the cool upstart as a generation of internet-savvy consumers came of age. The rise of the mobile internet and Facebook's wholehearted embrace of the medium only accelerated its stranglehold should you buy stock before dividend the dow jones industrial average after hours trading sector.

The progress it achieved along the way is nothing short of incredible. Facebook's monthly average users MAUs have increased from million at the end of to 1. Unsurprisingly, sales and profits have soared alongside this boom in users. As commendable as Facebook's product development has been in creating what is really a monopoly in social media, the company's acquisition strategy has been arguably just as, if not more, impressive.

It's clear that in many regards, Facebook is just getting started. Investors looking at Facebook's more recent results might need to pinch themselves.

However, even as it matures, Facebook still seems poised to grow at above-average rates well into the foreseeable future. Of course, this isn't the breakneck growth many investors are accustomed to seeing from Facebook, but it certainly should be enough to support continued share-price appreciation for the social network's stock.

Facebook also enjoys another long-term structural advantage kenya forex bureau rates should support its continued business expansion: Over the years, founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has proven to have an astute eye for talent, consistently recruiting A-players to help him build Facebook; Zuck is no slouch himself.

This more qualitative aspect of Facebook is harder to apply a direct dollar value to, but it arguably matters more over the long term. For these reasons and many more, Facebook remains a great stock to own for long-term buy-and-hold investors. Andrew Tonner has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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Andrew Tonner is a senior tech specialist for The Motley Fool. He is a graduate of The University of Arizona with a degree in Finance. Skip to main content The Motley Fool Fool. Premium Advice Help Fool Answers Contact Us Login. Latest Stock Picks Stocks Premium Services. Stock Advisor Flagship service. Rule Breakers High-growth stocks.

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