Fortress Facebook is suddenly vulnerable: Can it really generate profits?

Investors have lost faith in Facebook's ability to keep passing the money-making baton to the rest of its products

It wasn’t a dream or an exaggeration by cautious Facebook Inc. executives. The company’s financial results are weakening, just as executives warned they would a few months ago.

Everyone knew that at some point Facebook wouldn’t be able to continue posting eye-popping revenue growth and profit margins. What was surprising was how quickly the brakes came on. Early in 2018, Facebook’s revenue growth was nearly 50 percent. Facebook disclosed on Tuesday that its third-quarter revenue rose 33 percent from a year earlier — about in line with the rate of slowdown the company warned investors about in July. It wasn’t setting