Facebook's earnings disaster has it on pace to lose $115 billion in market value - which would be the biggest wipeout in stock-market history

Reuters / Keith Bedford

• Facebook's stock is taking a beating after a disappointing second-quarter earnings report that saw the company miss revenue expectations and warn of slowing growth ahead.
• Shares were trading 18% lower on Thursday, putting them on pace to wipe out $115 billion in market value. That would be the biggest single-day drop in stock-market history.
• Follow Facebook's stock price in real-time here.

Facebook is on pace to make the wrong type of history.

The Mark Zuckerberg-led social-media titan saw shares drop more than 18% on Thursday following a disastrous second-quarter earnings report after the market close on Wednesday.

Investors took issue with sales and subscriber numbers that fell short of expectations. But, perhaps most damaging of all, the company warned of a growth slowdown. What resulted was the biggest single-day drop since Facebook started trading publicly in May 2012.

But that still undersells the magnitude of Facebook's earnings disaster. On a market capitalization basis, the company is on pace for a $115 billion loss, which would be the biggest in stock-market history.

And as you can see in the chart below, it's not particularly close.

Business Insider / Joe Ciolli, data from Bloomberg

Note: Chart shows the biggest historic drops in companies worth more than $150 billion.

It must be noted, however, that in order for a loss of this magnitude to be possible in the first place, a company must be gigantic. Facebook achieved its $630 billion valuation (now $515 billion) through an eye-popping 472% run up in its stock price since going public. That it's seeing such a big chunk erased shows just how fickle investors can be about companies that already possess such stretched valuations.

Speaking of market-leading tech stocks, Facebook's mega-cap counterparts Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet all lost more than 1.5% at their overnight lows as the Nasdaq 100 index also dropped 1.2% in regular trading hours.

While analysts were stunned by Facebook's growth guidance and subsequent stock plunge, Business Insider's Jim Edwards points out that CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned three months ago that bad news was coming, and no one listened.

See also:

• Activist Facebook shareholder draws up a new proposal to fire Mark Zuckerberg as chairman
• Zuckerberg warned everyone 3 months ago bad news was coming, and no one listened