Facebook flops while Ford frolicks

It was a tale of two F’s today, as Facebook continued to have hard times in the month of May while Ford cruised to a new 52-week high.

Facebook (FB) has dropped a terrible twelve percent total in the month of May, and has now hit its low point for 2013. It has been trending down in the spring while Nasdaq has been moving in the opposite direction. Facebook is down almost 10% in 2013, while Nasdaq is up 16%.

It hasn’t even been all bad for Facebook this month. In fact, the beginning of May was great for the social network, as mobile ad sales led to a 5.5% increase on May 2 before the drop continued and started trending ever downward.

Meanwhile, Google (GOOG) is up over 25% in 2013 and LinkedIn (LNKD) is up over 50%. For Facebook, the concern continues to be how to monetize users. The social network has over 1 billion members, but sales are forecasted at just $6.7 billion, or $6.70 per user. Facebook certainly isn’t looking to install a subscription fee and lose many of their users as a result, and they seem to have peaked in terms of what they can generate through advertising alone. In this case, what’s great for customers is certainly not great for the company’s bottom line, or investors, for that matter.

The other “F” in today’s story, Ford (F), is on a different plane than Facebook, as it was up 3% on Tuesday and has shot up by 18% this year so far. Some of this increase came from plans to expand the company’s U.S. manufacturing capacity, allowing for more vehicle production.

Also, though European sales have been poor, a 20% increase in North American sales has made all the difference in the last month or so. The entire auto market has been on a nice increase, which means that Ford could continue to find some growth in the near to distant future.