If you're a Facebook shareholder who has lost half their money since the May IPO, here's some good news for you:

Wall Street has finally sobered up about Facebook's prospects.

Specifically, in the wake of Facebook customer Zynga's latest collapse, Wall Street has finally realized that its expectations for the second half of this year were insanely optimistic.

And Wall Street has reduced those expectations.

Most of Wall Street is still looking for modest sequential growth in Facebook's revenue in Q3 (earnings to be released today), but...

Wall Street is no longer expecting Facebook's Q3 revenue growth to accelerate!

That's good news.

Because, until recently, Wall Street thought Facebook's revenue growth would magically accelerate this quarter, thus removing the biggest drag on the stock (deceleration).

This expectation always seemed a tad, well, delusional.

So, it's helpful that analysts have finally gotten control of themselves.

Now, is it possible that Facebook's revenue growth will actually accelerate this quarter?

Yes, it's possible. Not likely, but possible.

And now, if Facebook's revenue does actually accelerate, this will be viewed as a bona fide positive surprise and very encouraging.

So, Wall Street's sobering up is good news for you, Facebook shareholders. Now, expectations are low enough that if your company does manage to reaccelerate its revenue growth, the stock should pop.

What are the key numbers you should look for?

The consensus expectation for Q3 revenue is $1.23 billion.

That's 29% growth year over year, a modest deceleration from last quarter's 32%. If Facebook beats that number, it's good news. If Facebook misses that number, well, you know the drill.

On the bottom line, meanwhile, the Wall Street consensus is $0.11.
