Meta zvýšila spodní hranici výhledu kapitálových výdajů pro rok 2026 na 130 miliard USD, horní hranice 145 miliard USD zůstala beze změny. Firma dál sází na AI infrastrukturu.
As of this writing, which is after the market closed on July 29, shares of Meta Platforms (META +3.28%) have fallen 10%. Earnings in Q2 (ended June 30) came in below estimates, while third-quarter revenue guidance was weaker than expected.
This extends the social media stock's losing streak. It's trading 26% below its all-time high from August 2025.
The market's attention in recent quarters has been directed to spending trends. Meta raised the lower end of its guidance for 2026 capital expenditures (capex) to $130 billion from $125 billion. But the upper end, $145 billion, was kept unchanged.
The business is betting it all on artificial intelligence (AI). Here's what investors need to know.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Profits are under pressure During the second quarter, Meta reported operating income of $18.8 billion. This figure declined 8% year over year. That's because costs and expenses surged 55%. The gain is mostly coming from research and development, which exploded 68%.
Free cash flow (FCF) went from $8.5 billion in Q2 2025 to $784 million in the most recent quarter. Like the other hyperscalers, Meta is in the middle of a major capex super cycle. It's sparing no expense. The consensus view among analysts is that FCF will be negative in 2026 and 2027.
For what was such a wildly profitable business historically, this is a new normal that investors must get used to.
Meta's balance sheet is also not as robust as it once was. Its long-term debt of $83.7 billion is up from $58.7 billion at the end of last year. At the same time, cash and cash equivalents shrunk 57%.
There were also no share repurchases in the first six months of 2026.
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It all comes down to monetizing AI Investors received more color on Meta's plan to sell excess technical capacity to third-party customers. "We have quite a number of offers at a meaningful premium over what we paid for the compute," Zuckerberg said on the Q2 2026 earnings call. Because the industry is constrained on the supply side, the business can quickly generate revenue by offering its resources to the market.
But I think what matters most to Meta right now is how AI investments upgrade its core operations. "They're improving the experience for people using our apps, driving better performance for advertisers, and helping our teams build new experiences and ship faster," Zuckerberg added on the call.
Revenue grew 28% in Q2, an impressive figure for a company of this size. Both ad impressions and pricing jumped by double digits. And Meta's family of apps ended the quarter with 3.6 billion daily active users.
With up to $145 billion in capex on the line this year, investors should have high expectations, hoping the strong momentum continues. The stock's performance depends on the business delivering adequate returns from its AI efforts.
Analytik Mark Mahaney označil Meta Platforms za svůj top tip na long pozici u velké společnosti kvůli podpoře reklamy ze strany AI a atraktivní valuaci. Po slabých výsledcích ale snížil cílovou cenu z 930 USD na 820 USD.
Mark Mahaney, an Evercore analyst, called Meta Platforms (META +3.28%) his top large-cap long idea on July 22. He believes advertising demand and ad improvements driven by artificial intelligence (AI) will drive continued revenue growth, and that the company is undervalued currently.
One week later, Meta released an underwhelming earnings report, and its share price dropped about 10% in a single day. Mahaney reiterated that he expects the stock to outperform, but he lowered his price target from $930 to $820.
Is the social media giant an undervalued megacap or a value trap? Let's take a closer look at why Mahaney likes it and whether his thesis still holds.
Image source: Getty Images.
Meta looks like a bargain At a glance, Meta stock has a lot to offer. Its social media platforms averaged 3.6 billion daily active users across its brands in June 2026, one of the largest user bases among tech companies.
Despite its entrenched position, it's still delivering double-digit growth. Revenue was up 28% year over year to $60.8 billion in the second quarter of 2026, and ad impressions increased 14% year over year.
The growth is there, it has a dominant market position, and it trades at just 20 times trailing earnings and 17 times forward earnings. By those metrics, it's the second-cheapest stock among the "Magnificent Seven" tech companies, with Alphabet the only one trading at lower multiples. However, the highlights don't tell the whole story.
Why investors are worried The primary concern with Meta is its huge AI spending. The company's costs and expenses jumped 55% year over year to $42 billion in the second quarter, contributing to its failure to meet earnings estimates. Earnings per share (EPS) came in at $6.18, a 13% year-over-year decrease, compared to analyst expectations of $7.14.
Meta also slightly raised its 2026 capital expenditure guidance to between $130 billion and $145 billion. The previous low end of the estimate was $125 billion. It's a minor adjustment in the grand scheme of things, but it does send a message that AI spending isn't slowing down.
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Management, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, hasn't provided much concrete information on the progress of its frontier AI models, either. The company has delayed multiple AI rollouts, including its Avocado system and Muse Spark model.
The concerns are valid, but so is the growth case The company's AI spending is somewhat worrisome, especially given its model delays and the fact that it doesn't currently have a business to sell its computing capacity to, unlike the other hyperscalers investing heavily in AI. But the revenue growth rate is impressive for such a large company, and AI has reportedly already been driving higher ad impressions and more revenue per ad.
With that in mind, the current price could be a good buying opportunity. Wall Street analysts overwhelmingly see it as a buy, with a median one-year price target of $800, close to Mahaney's own forecast. While Meta will likely remain volatile, the strength of its business gives it substantial upside.
SummaryMeta Platforms, Inc. delivered strong 28% revenue growth, but margins and free cash flow suffered due to aggressive AI-driven capex.I remain Buy-rated on META, emphasizing the resilient ad business, robust user engagement, and tangible AI-driven monetization improvements.The market is overly focused on the free cash flow shock, underappreciating AI's immediate positive impact on ad performance and platform economics.Risks include prolonged high capex, unclear AI monetization beyond ads, and regulatory/legal pressures, but I prefer buying META on this weakness. Stockyme/iStock via Getty Images
Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) delivered one of the more complicated Mag 7 earnings reports of this quarter. The company did not miss the top line. Revenue grew 28% year-over-year to $60.80 billion, advertising revenue grew 27%, ad impressions increased
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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of META either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Policie v jihoindickém Hyderabádu zahájila řízení proti šéfovi Meta India Arunu Srinivasovi kvůli videím na Facebooku, která podle ní zobrazovala premiéra Naréndru Módího urážlivě. Policie chystá oznámení i pro Meta.
People are seen behind a logo of Meta Platforms, during a conference in Mumbai, India, September 20, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SummaryCompaniesPolice preparing to send notice to MetaCase follows India's tightening of content rulesIndia is Facebook's biggest market by usersNEW DELHI, July 31 (Reuters) - Police in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad have registered a case against the head of Meta India, Arun Srinivas, over multiple videos posted on the company's Facebook platform that depicted Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an "abusive manner," a senior police officer said on Friday.
The videos spread as Modi contended with the biggest wave of youth-led protests India has seen in more than a decade, a movement over leaked papers in national examinations that has led to the resignation of his education minister.
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Police are preparing to send a notice to Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab regarding the case, said V Aravind Babu, deputy commissioner of police for cyber crimes in Hyderabad.
Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters' request for comment on Friday.
It was not immediately clear why Srinivas had been named personally, a rare move against a senior executive of a global tech firm. India has tightened its content rules this year, narrowing the legal shield that protects platforms from liability for what their users post and raising the exposure of the executives who run them.
Since February, platforms must remove unlawful content flagged by courts or the government within three hours, down from 36, or lose that protection.
Holding someone personally responsible normally requires proof of "an active role and knowledge," said Akash Karmakar, a technology law partner at Indian law firm Panag & Babu.
Meta has repeatedly drawn the ire of Indian government over content posted by its users, and faced criticism that it does too little to police hate speech and misinformation on Facebook and Instagram.
FACEBOOK'S BIGGEST MARKET BY USERSThe case builds on a run of tensions between Meta and Modi's government over content tied to the prime minister. Modi has faced a barrage of online criticism, jokes and ridicule by protesters in recent weeks.
India's IT ministry summoned Meta executives this week after Facebook briefly restricted a Modi post, with a top official saying the government wanted the company to explain the matter at the highest level.
A Meta spokesperson said at the time that the post, which was Modi's first where he addressed the massive student protests, had been blocked inadvertently.
India is Facebook's biggest market by users. Srinivas is Meta's managing director and head for India since July 2025.
The case against him is among many others that were filed based on complaints by supporters of Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, who alleged that manipulated videos and images of the prime minister were being circulated on Meta-owned social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, local media reported earlier.
Reporting by Munsif Vengattil; Writing by Hritam Mukherjee; Editing by Tom Hogue and Raju Gopalakrishnan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Based in Bengaluru, Munsif Vengattil leads Reuters' technology news coverage in India. He tracks themes at the intersection of tech, business, and labor. A reporter for nine years, Munsif has written extensively on India's electronics manufacturing aspirations and its tech policy space, AI and election interference, satellite internet, streaming wars, and data breaches. His stories also focus on investigating corporate strategies and revealing India-specific initiatives and challenges of the biggest of tech firms - from Apple, Facebook, and Google, to Foxconn, Samsung, and Nvidia.
Akcie společnosti Meta klesly až o 10 % poté, co výsledky za třetí čtvrtletí a výhled na běžné čtvrtletí zklamaly investory čekající jasnější návratnost výdajů na AI.
Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB) shares fell as much as 10% on Thursday morning after the company's third-quarter results left investors unconvinced that its massive artificial intelligence spending is translating into tangible returns.
Earnings per share came in at $6.18, well below the $7.22 analysts had expected, even as revenue of $60.8 billion topped forecasts of $60.17 billion. Meta's guidance for the current quarter also fell short, with the company projecting sales of $62.5 billion versus estimates of $63.15 billion.
Total costs rose 55% year-over-year to $42.03 billion, with more than $1 billion of that tied to severance pay following a round of layoffs.
On the earnings call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg declined to offer specific capex guidance for 2027, saying infrastructure planning "remains highly dynamic."
"We're gearing our current infrastructure plans toward maximizing capacity in 2026 and 2027, while giving us the flexibility to continue growing in 2028 and beyond," he said.
Reality Labs, the division behind Meta's virtual reality headsets and wearable AI devices, reported a $4.6 billion loss on sales of $431 million for the quarter.
Zuckerberg said demand for AI compute continues to outstrip supply. "There's just nowhere near enough compute for all the demand," he said. "We're getting a large number of offers for the compute that we have, but we also have a lot of internal uses that we think are going to be quite valuable."
On financing its infrastructure buildout, Meta said it has been shifting toward more debt. "We've been evolving our capital structure in recent years to include a greater mix of debt as we work to bring down our cost of capital," the company said, adding it has "generally found it prudent to continue adding cost-efficient, long-duration sources of capital."
The selloff extends a difficult stretch for Meta stock, which had already fallen for 10 consecutive trading sessions heading into the results, its longest losing streak on record.
Analysts at BofA said the after-hours pressure did not appear to reflect weakening fundamentals, pointing to a 10% rise in time spent on Instagram and a third-quarter revenue outlook implying accelerating two-year growth. Instead, they attributed the drop to investor concerns over Meta's spending direction, compounded by higher stock-based compensation.
XTB research director Kathleen Brooks said investors are still waiting for clearer signs that Meta's AI investments are paying off.
“It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Meta’s share price, which has traded lower for ten consecutive days, its longest losing streak in its history,” Brooks said.
“Although severance costs are only temporary and we could see profitability bounce back in Q3, we think that the sharp selloff in the Meta share price in the post-market is down to the astonishing burn rate of free cash flow.”
Meta chce, aby AI vytvořila třetí proud obsahu pro Instagram a přidala téměř nekonečný personalizovaný obsah. Zuckerberg říká, že nové modely Muse mají tento posun pohánět.
Meta Wants AI To Become Instagram’s Third Content FeedToday, Instagram primarily surfaces content from two places: people users follow and creators they may not. Zuckerberg said AI is about to add an entirely new category.
“There are already two large sets of content to draw from — first from your friends and the people you follow, and second from creators that you don’t follow — but now there is going to be a whole new and nearly infinite universe of personalized content,” Zuckerberg said.
He said Meta’s newly launched Muse Image and Muse Video models will power that shift by generating highly personalized content tailored to individual users.
“This is going to make our services a lot more useful and engaging for people,” Zuckerberg added.
AI Is Already Reshaping InstagramMeta’s AI push is already producing measurable results across Instagram and Facebook.
The company said large language models are improving recommendation systems by developing a deeper understanding of both content and user intent, allowing Meta to surface more relevant posts and videos. On Instagram, global time spent grew at a double-digit rate during the quarter, driven largely by improvements to Feed and Reels recommendations.
Susan Li, Meta’s chief financial officer, also revealed that every public Reels and Feed post on Instagram is now automatically processed through a large language model that analyzes everything from topics to tone before feeding those signals into recommendation and ranking systems.
The company also rolled out its largest-ever Reels ranking upgrade, which drove a 15-basis-point increase in Instagram sessions. Meanwhile, more than half of all recommended content in Instagram Feed is now less than one day old—more than double the level seen a year ago.
Why It Matters For InvestorsMeta has spent years relying on creators and user-generated content to drive engagement. Zuckerberg’s latest comments suggest the company now sees AI-generated content as another long-term growth engine.
If AI can continuously generate personalized images, videos and other media that users find engaging, it could significantly expand the amount of content available on Instagram while keeping people on the platform longer—creating more opportunities to serve advertisements.
The strategy also extends beyond content recommendations. Zuckerberg said AI is already improving ad targeting, creative tools and business performance, reinforcing Meta’s broader view that artificial intelligence will become a core driver of future engagement and monetization across its apps.
Image via Shutterstock
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Meta tvrdí, že AI urychluje vývoj nových aplikací a brzy plánuje další „nové produkty pro spotřebitele“. Zuckerberg uvedl, že LLMs pomáhají i růstu Threads, které má 500 milionů měsíčně aktivních uživatelů.
Meta is using AI to quickly launch apps, and more are on the way. During this week’s second-quarter earnings call, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social giant has new apps in the works, following a recent spate of other launches that included an app for Marketplace sellers, one for Facebook Groups, a vibe-coded gaming app, a newphotos app from Instagram, and an experiment involving AI bedtime stories.
Meta has spent years trying and failing to produce new, standalone social apps to complement its core platforms. Now, the company says that large language models (LLMs) make it possible to ship software faster, allowing it to test new ideas at a quicker pace.
“I’m…excited about how AI is helping our teams speed up product development,” Zuckerberg told investors on Wednesday’s call. “Earlier this year, we shipped Instagram Instants. We also just launched Forum, a standalone Groups app, and Seller, a standalone Marketplace app. I expect it to become a lot easier to ship new apps. So we are planning to build out more ideas and use our recommendation systems to scale them,” he said.
“AI is improving our core business; it’s making our apps more relevant and delivering better results for businesses. We’re starting to deliver more novel products, and we’ll have a lot more there soon as well,” Zuckerberg said.
Meta has been down this road before. In its earlier days, Meta (then known as Facebook) ran an internal incubator called Creative Labs, which aimed to test new social concepts.
That effort produced a handful of launches: the photo-sharing app Slingshot, an anonymous chat app Rooms, a Flipboard competitor called Paper, the Moments photo-sharing app, and a collaborative video app known as Riff. Those experiments came to an end in 2015, and the apps were eventually all shuttered, as the company struggled to find an audience for its efforts.
In the early 2020s, Meta tried again, this time with an internal R&D group, NPE Team, which tested apps that included the chat app Bump, social music app Aux, task app Move, dating app Spark, calling app CatchUp, zine maker E.gg, events app Venue, creator Q&A app Hotline, Cameo competitor Super, couples app Tuned, music app BARS, and others.
Again, none became a breakout success, and the apps were shut down.
Now Meta can point to at least one example of how AI is helping new apps scale. It has finally delivered a modest hit with Threads, which now has 500 million monthly active users. Zuckerberg likes to say Threads will one day become the company’s next billion-user app.
With Threads, Meta learned to heavily lean on its existing user base to help initially seed the app with people, then continued to heavily promote it across its existing platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. But LLMs are another key factor in Threads’ growth, as the company said it sees “significant gains” from its AI-powered content recommendations.
“We are finding that LLMs are increasingly capable of delivering ranking and recommendations gains,” Meta’s CFO Susan Li told investors on the call. “First, they make our existing systems smarter by understanding what the content is actually about and generating better training data. Second, LLM-powered agents are also helping with engineering development by evaluating content quality, detecting trends, and testing ranking changes.”
Li added that earlier this year, Meta reached a milestone: every Reel and Feed post on Instagram is now automatically processed through an LLM and analyzed for topic and tone, which helps improve recommendations.
The company is also developing LLM-native recommendation systems, which could help it to better scale new apps as they arrive.
Investors didn’t follow up with company executives to ask more questions about the new apps Meta has in the works, as they were more concerned with AI spending and Meta’s growing enterprise ambitions. However, Zuckerberg suggested that people won’t have long to wait to see what’s next, saying the “new consumer products” were “releasing soon.”
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Meta vykázala budoucí závazky z leasingu ve výši 278,99 miliardy USD, hlavně kvůli datovým centrům pro AI. Oproti předchozímu čtvrtletí jde o nárůst z 182,88 miliardy USD.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Bloomberg/Getty Images Meta has more than a quarter trillion dollars in future lease obligations — largely tied to AI data centers — as the tech giant races to build out its artificial intelligence infrastructure, a new regulatory filing shows.
In its quarterly securities filing released a day after its earnings report, Meta said it had approximately $278.99 billion in operating and finance leases that have not yet begun and were not yet included on its balance sheet.
The lease agreements cover "data centers, colocations, and certain network infrastructure" and were scheduled to begin between the remainder of the year through 2036, Meta said in the filing. The lease terms range from more than one year to 30 years.
The nearly $279 billion figure represents a roughly 53% jump from the $182.88 billion in future lease obligations Meta reported in its first-quarter filings three months earlier.
Meta said in its latest securities filing that in July, after the quarter ended, it entered into additional data center leases with commitments of about $68 billion. Those leases are expected to begin in 2027 and 2028 with lease terms of 18 to 20 years, the company said.
The disclosures offer another glimpse into the extraordinary scale of Meta's AI infrastructure push.
Earlier this month, the owner of Facebook and Instagram announced plans to expand what was already expected to be its largest AI data center. Meta said that the Louisiana data center, known as Hyperion, will grow to 5 gigawatts of compute capacity, bringing the project's anticipated cost to more than $50 billion.
On Meta's second-quarter earnings call Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said a "significant portion" of the company's computing capacity will be used to train its AI models, power AI agents, and support its core business. Zuckerberg added that Meta also expects to "grow a large business serving large customers as well."
Separate from its future lease obligations, Meta reported $349.31 billion in non-cancelable contractual commitments comprising both short-term and long-term arrangements.
"These commitments mostly relate to third-party cloud capacity arrangements and investments in servers and network infrastructure, data centers, and consumer hardware products in Reality Labs, with approximately $53.52 billion and $81.65 billion due in 2026 and 2027, respectively," Meta said in its filing.
Meta also said it has contingent obligations to purchase up to $14.72 billion of cloud capacity over the next five years. Those commitments "may be reduced if the cloud service provider is able to sell such capacity to other customers," Meta said.
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Natalie is a senior reporter on Business Insider's Business News team.She was previously on BI's Legal Affairs team where she covered major cases out of state and federal court, as well as bankruptcy. Her coverage often focused on stories at the intersection of law, business, politics and technology. Natalie has covered Donald Trump’s criminal and civil cases, the wave of lawsuits against the second Trump administration, the indictment and criminal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs, the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and the legal battles facing Elon Musk and his companies. Natalie came to Business Insider in June 2021 as a breaking news reporter, focusing on the most interesting angles around the trending news of the day. Natalie largely drove BI’s coverage around the fatal “Rust” shooting involving Alec Baldwin and the disappearance and murder of Gabby Petito.Prior to joining BI, Natalie worked for the New York Post, the New York Daily News, and The Brooklyn Paper. She has an extensive background covering crime and courts. During her more than 12-year journalism career, she did a stint covering the police beat out of the headquarters for the New York Police Department. Natalie, a Brooklyn native, graduated from Brooklyn College in 2012 with a journalism degree. Popular articles
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Absolute Gestao de Investimentos Ltda. bought a new stake in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) during the first quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor bought 3,500 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,002,000.
Several other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently made changes to their positions in the business. RHL Group LLC bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth about $28,000. Strategic Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at about $29,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $42,000. Bayban lifted its holdings in Meta Platforms by 100.0% during the 1st quarter. Bayban now owns 70 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $40,000 after buying an additional 35 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Key Capital Management INC bought a new position in Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter worth approximately $48,000. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades A number of research analysts have recently issued reports on META shares. Rothschild & Co Redburn raised their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $1,000.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 21st. Piper Sandler initiated coverage on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Tuesday, June 2nd. They set an “overweight” rating for the company. Royal Bank Of Canada reiterated an “outperform” rating and set a $810.00 price objective on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Monday, June 1st. The Goldman Sachs Group cut shares of Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “sell” rating in a report on Tuesday, June 2nd. Finally, Wall Street Zen downgraded Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, May 16th. Five analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have given a Buy rating, eight have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company. According to MarketBeat, the stock presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $835.64.
Read Our Latest Stock Report on META
Insiders Place Their Bets In other Meta Platforms news, insider Curtis J. Mahoney sold 2,079 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $609.92, for a total value of $1,268,023.68. Following the transaction, the insider owned 1,118 shares in the company, valued at approximately $681,890.56. This represents a 65.03% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 9,195 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, May 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $607.84, for a total value of $5,589,088.80. Following the sale, the chief financial officer owned 13,186 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,014,978.24. This represents a 41.08% decrease in their ownership of the stock. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders have sold 39,325 shares of company stock worth $23,979,087 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 13.53% of the company’s stock.
Meta Platforms Trading Down 1.3% Shares of Meta Platforms stock opened at $585.61 on Thursday. The business has a fifty day simple moving average of $603.59 and a 200-day simple moving average of $624.24. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $520.26 and a fifty-two week high of $796.25. The firm has a market cap of $1.48 trillion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 21.29, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.99 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a quick ratio of 2.35, a current ratio of 2.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, July 29th. The social networking company reported $6.18 earnings per share for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of $7.19 by ($1.01). The business had revenue of $60.80 billion for the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $60.22 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 36.93% and a net margin of 32.84%.The company’s quarterly revenue was up 28.0% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business posted $7.14 earnings per share. On average, equities analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 29.4 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Meta Platforms Announces Dividend The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 15th were paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.4%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 15th. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is 7.63%.
More Meta Platforms News Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: Second-quarter revenue rose 28% year over year to $60.8 billion, exceeding the $60.2 billion consensus estimate. Advertising revenue increased 27%, ad impressions grew 14%, and average price per ad rose 12%, indicating that Meta’s core advertising business remains robust. Meta stock sinks as Q2 earnings disappoint on multiple fronts Positive Sentiment: Meta said Reality Labs lost more than $4.6 billion, but the loss was narrower than analysts expected. The company also continues pursuing enterprise AI, including business agents for customer service and other workplace functions. Meta’s Reality Labs lost over $4.6 billion in second quarter Positive Sentiment: A $14 billion El Paso data-center venture with BlackRock will help Meta secure approximately one gigawatt of AI capacity while sharing financing and balance-sheet risk. The structure could reduce the immediate burden of Meta’s infrastructure buildout, although Meta remains the facility’s primary tenant. Meta, BlackRock partner on $14 billion El Paso data center Positive Sentiment: Some analysts remain bullish: Guggenheim reaffirmed a Buy rating with an $800 price target, while a Seeking Alpha analysis cited a normalized operating margin of roughly 36.8% after excluding legal and severance charges. Meta Platforms Q2: The Market Sells, I Buy The Dip Neutral Sentiment: Meta forecast third-quarter revenue of $61 billion to $64 billion, broadly around but slightly below the $63.2 billion consensus midpoint. No EPS outlook was provided in the reported guidance. Zuckerberg also promoted open AI development and opposed restrictions on Chinese AI models, positions that may support innovation but could attract regulatory scrutiny. Zuckerberg says Meta’s enterprise AI opportunity extends beyond agents Negative Sentiment: Second-quarter EPS fell to $6.18, missing estimates near $7.1–$7.2 and declining from $7.14 a year earlier. Results were pressured by approximately $2.4 billion of legal costs and $1.2 billion of severance expenses. Meta misses profit expectations, sticks to massive AI spending Negative Sentiment: Meta plans to spend approximately $130 billion to $145 billion on AI and data-center infrastructure this year, with the minimum raised by $5 billion. Investors fear the spending will compress margins and free cash flow before a direct AI revenue stream is proven. Meta shares tumble as AI spending stuns Wall Street Negative Sentiment: COO Javier Olivan sold shares under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 plan, reducing his holdings in two transactions. Because the sales were scheduled, they are a limited bearish signal but may reinforce investor caution. SEC insider transaction filing Meta Platforms Company Profile (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
Featured Articles Five stocks we like better than Meta Platforms Why SK hynix Could Be the Best AI Chip Stock to Buy Now Seagate Technology Stock Surges as Earnings Beat Silences AI Doubters Alphabet Is Down 18% From Its High After a Stellar Quarter—Overdone, or More Downside Ahead? Why Bloom Energy May Be the Most Important AI Infrastructure Stock Want to see what other hedge funds are holding META? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report).
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Mark Zuckerberg řekl, že během pěti let budou mít miliardy lidí osobního AI agenta, který bude pracovat 24/7 na jejich cílech. Meta už nasazuje firemní agenty pro více než milion podniků na WhatsAppu a Messengeru.
A day after blasting OpenAI and Anthropic for hoarding information, the drama surrounding Meta’s Q2 earnings call centered around how he would follow up. Listeners didn’t have to wait long for the answer.
“It’s extremely unlikely, if you look out five years from now, that you don’t have billions of people with a personal agent that understands your goals,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the company’s second quarter earnings call Wednesday (July 29), describing software “working on your behalf 24/7” across health, finances, relationships and careers.
That vision, for every one of Meta’s 3.6 billion daily users to have an assistant that never clocks out dominated Meta’s earnings call. Zuckerberg spent his opening remarks describing a future where personal agents handle everything from health to finances, and the rest of the call built directly on that premise: how Meta pays for it, what stands in the way, and why the company believes it will win anyway.
The vision runs into a hard constraint almost immediately: supply. “There’s just nowhere near enough compute for all the demand,” Zuckerberg said, explaining that Meta is fielding offers to sell its own capacity at a premium but prefers to build intelligence on top of it instead, where the margins run higher.
That scarcity is why Meta is racing to stand up the agent layer now, even in pieces. Meta Superintelligence Labs shipped its Muse Spark 1.1 and Muse Image models this quarter, and daily interactions with the Meta AI assistant have climbed sharply since it’s rebuild. Business agents are already live for more than a million businesses on WhatsApp and Messenger, handling customer inquiries and completed sales without a person in the loop.
Zuckerberg pointed to Brazilian rental company Movida as the model he wants to replicate: a WhatsApp agent that runs the entire booking flow start to finish, resolving the vast majority of conversations without human help. That is the pattern Meta is betting will scale to billions of people next.
Zuckerberg’s Case for Why Meta Wins the AI Bet Scarce compute raises an obvious question: Why should Meta, rather than a rival, end up owning this? Zuckerberg’s answer rests on distribution and the flywheel it creates. “When we have a product and a format that works, I would go as far as to say that I think we’re probably the best company in the world at scaling those experiences to billions of people,” he said, describing how usage data feeds back into the models that improve the products.
He did not pretend the wager was small. “I get that this is a big investment and it’s a big bet,” Zuckerberg said. “My personal bet is that the people who invest in this are going to be rewarded and feel very good over time.”
That confidence is the thesis the entire call built toward: an ad business strong enough to fund an all-in push into personal agents, aimed at a future Zuckerberg is convinced is coming regardless of who builds it.
What Else Stood Out Meta hired Kunal Shah, founder of Indian payments company CRED, as its new head of WhatsApp. Zuckerberg said Shah built one of India’s largest payment companies. Instagram reached 2 billion daily active users. Threads crossed 500 million monthly actives, which Zuckerberg called the fastest-growing conversation app ever. WhatsApp peaked at 30 million messages sent per second during the World Cup final, an all-time record for the platform. AI-driven ranking improvements increased ad clicks and conversions across Meta’s platforms. Advantage+ automated campaigns continue to scale as a core part of ad delivery Meta launched Meta One, a new subscription offering more tools and AI features across its apps, with plans to add further tiers and pricing options Zuckerberg revealed that every public Reels and Feed post on Instagram is now automatically run through an LLM and analyzed across dimensions like topic and tone, a milestone the company hit this year. Topline Growth and Future Outlook Meta reported total revenue of $60.8 billion for the quarter, up 28% year over year, with advertising revenue of $59.4 billion, up 27%. Ad impressions grew 14% and the average price per ad rose 12%. Family of apps other revenue crossed $1 billion for the first time, up 73%.
Capital expenditures for the quarter reached $31.1 billion, while free cash flow came in at $784 million. Meta ended the quarter with $90.3 billion in cash and marketable securities against $83.7 billion in debt, and headcount stood at roughly 75,000, down 3%, reflecting about 8,000 employees affected by May’s reduction.
Looking ahead, Meta guided to third-quarter 2026 revenue of $61 billion to $64 billion, full-year 2026 expenses of $165 billion to $169 billion, and full-year 2026 capital expenditures of $130 billion to $145 billion, with the floor raised from its prior outlook.
The company did not provide specific guidance for 2027 capex.
Meta zvažuje, zda část své AI výpočetní kapacity zpeněžit, nebo si ji ponechat pro vlastní modely. Zuckerberg řekl, že nabídky na compute přicházejí s výraznou prémií.
As Meta gobbles up land to construct massive AI data centers, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says there's a balancing act when it comes to deciding whether to sell excess capacity or to preserve it.
Among the four major U.S. hyperscalers, Meta is the only one that doesn't have a business selling cloud infrastructure and services even though its capital expenditures rival that of its peers. But in recent months, Zuckerberg has been floating the possibility of launching a cloud business as a way to take advantage of its capacity stockpile in a resource-constrained market.
As CNBC reported earlier this month, Anthropic is in preliminary talks to lease computing power from Meta.
"We're getting a lot of offers for compute at a significant premium over what we paid for it," Zuckerberg said on the company's second-quarter earnings call after the bell on Wednesday. "And we have more coding and productivity tools on our roadmap as well."
Zuckerberg's comments came after Meta issued a weaker-than-expected revenue forecast for the third quarter and said free cash flow dwindled by 90% from a year earlier due to soaring capex. The stock sank more than 7% in after-hours trading, extending a slump that's pushed it down 11% for the year as of Wednesday's close.
watch now
In the report, Meta bumped up the low end of its 2026 capital expenditure guidance by $5 billion, bringing the range to between $130 billion and $145 billion. Last week, Alphabet hiked the top end of its guidance to $205 billion and turned cash flow negative for the first time. And Microsoft said in its earnings report on Wednesday that capex for the year will be roughly $175 billion. Amazon reports results on Thursday.
Investors have been seeking details on Zuckerberg's AI strategy, which has been scattershot and left Meta behind OpenAI, Anthropic and Google in the market for top models and services.
"I think everyone wants clarity into what he wants to do in the compute business," Brent Thill, an analyst at Jefferies, told CNBC's "Closing Bell Overtime."
Considering the trade-offZuckerberg offered little by way of specifics on his plans, but he spelled out some of the various considerations at play.
"In terms of running the business, obviously, a common trade-off that we need to make is around how much do you monetize something today versus develop future assets," Zuckerberg said. "I think that it's always a portfolio."
He said that in looking at a potential enterprise business, it's not just about selling capacity. The company also has API and productivity services it can offer as well as AI agents that it's building, Zuckerberg said.
"And I think that there's just a very, very large opportunity there," he said.
However, Meta needs ample compute capacity to satisfy its own AI ambitions, especially as the company begins aggressively rolling out new models under the leadership of AI chief Alexandr Wang. Earlier this month, Meta debuted the Muse Spark 1.1 model, which Wang said represents the "strongest model for agentic and coding work yet" and at a cheaper price than offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic.
"It would be foolish to basically just sell all of the compute and take a short-term profit," Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg acknowledged that jumping into the enterprise, where Meta has historically struggled, will require some hard work, and that the company has to learn how to do it. While he didn't reference hiring a sales force, it will be an essential move if Meta is serious about selling to businesses big and small.
"That's going to be somewhat a new muscle that we build as a company," Zuckerberg said. "But I think it's a very important one that we build."
Dave Brown, a former longtime senior executive at Amazon Web Services, is set to join the company, CNBC recently confirmed.
A big challenge for Zuckerberg as he tries to sell Wall Street on his vision is his spotty track record. Zuckerberg's most notable whiff was the metaverse, and his effort starting in 2021 to reshape the company around a futuristic digital world.
That project is still costing Meta billions of dollars a quarter. Meta's Reality Labs, which develops virtual reality devices and wearables, lost $4.62 billion in the latest period on just $431 million of revenue.
Still, Meta is desperate to diversify its business beyond digital ads, which still account for 98% of the company's revenue, and to show that it can be an influential player in AI.
Zuckerberg is all-in.
"I get that this is sort of a big bet across the industry," Zuckerberg said. "My personal bet is that the people who invest in this are going to be rewarded and feel very good over time."
WATCH: Jefferies' Brent Thill: Meta report was 'trifecta' of things that could go wrong.
Mark Zuckerberg uvedl, že globální čas strávený na Instagramu ve čtvrtletí meziročně vzrostl o dvouciferné procento, hlavně díky vylepšením feedu a doporučením pro Reels. Meta zároveň uvedla, že doporučení jsou stále více personalizovaná.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that global time spent on Instagram grew by double digits year over year this quarter. Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images If you can't seem to get off your Instagram scroll, it is not an accident.
During Meta's second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that global time spent on Instagram grew by double digits year over year this quarter, "largely driven by improvements to our feed and Reels recommendations."
"Our recommendations are also becoming more personalized, surfacing more fresh content while giving people more direct control over what they see," Zuckerberg said, adding that Instagram reels combined "faster inference with a new architecture that draws on deeper user history to improve predictions."
"This drove a 15 basis point increase in sessions on Instagram, with particular strength in reshares and time spent, which are both strong indicators of better content-to-user matching," Zuckerberg added.
According to Zuckerberg, recommendations are trained through automatically feeding every public Reel and post on Instagram to an LLM and analyzing them for topics and tone, which he called "a key building block toward greater personalization."
"And we're working towards including more surfaces on Facebook as well," Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg's comments came weeks after the company launched Muse Image in early July, which lets users create AI-generated images from photos on public Instagram accounts of people over 18. By default, eligible public accounts were included without prior notice, triggering a privacy backlash that led to the generation function being shut down in less than a week.
Users could prevent Meta's AI from accessing visual content by going to Instagram's Settings, opening the Share and Reuse section, and switching off the option that lets Meta access photos and videos. There was no such option for text, comments, or audio.
The algorithms have been central to multiple lawsuits filed by more than two dozen states that alleged that Meta designed its products to be addictive to teenagers and children.
During the call, Meta CFO Susan Li said the company expects continued "scrutiny on youth-related issues in several markets" and has "a number of youth-related trials scheduled for this year," which could result in financial losses. The company reported $2.40 billion of charges "related to legal proceedings."
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
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Meta chce rozšířit podnikové AI nad rámec agentů a nabídnout firmám také API, compute a další služby. Zuckerberg říká, že tím může vzniknout nový zdroj tržeb mimo reklamu.
In June, Meta entered the enterprise AI market with a new AI agent aimed at businesses, to help with customer service, support, and other daily operations. But the tech giant’s enterprise AI ambitions are much more expansive, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors on Wednesday’s second-quarter earnings call.
“We see a large enterprise opportunity to sell to businesses, including APIs, business agents, potentially selling compute directly, and other services that we’re building for large customers,” Zuckerberg said. These additions could potentially position the business to create new revenue streams beyond advertising, which drives the bulk of its business, and subscriptions, which contribute a smaller share.
Initially, the company will focus on the opportunity to serve its existing base of advertisers by offering AI agents that work across messaging apps and elsewhere. These allow businesses to interact with their own customers through an AI interface.
“And, just like the ad system, effectively, we will get paid when we deliver results for those businesses,” Zuckerberg said. “We view this as an extension of the sales and the partnerships that we have with many millions of advertisers and hundreds of millions of small businesses that use our platforms.”
He also fleshed out how Meta could expand beyond serving the small business customer that makes up much of its current advertiser base by offering Meta’s internal tools to external customers in the future.
“There are other enterprise customers who I think we’re increasingly going to serve, too,” Zuckerberg explained. “We’re building coding and developing and internal productivity tools partially because we need to build them ourselves, and we need to make sure that we have tools that are tuned for ourselves,” he continued. “Now that we have those, we feel like there’s a large opportunity to serve — whether that’s small businesses or larger businesses.”
This shift in focus may not come easy — Zuckerberg admitted that selling to the enterprise was a “different muscle” than the one Meta has historically flexed.
Meanwhile, in terms of Meta selling compute to enterprise customers, Meta is focused on balancing its need for revenue and its need to execute on its own future plans. That said, the company pointed out multiple times that it currently has the opportunity to sell compute at “a significant premium over what we paid for it.”
Still, Zuckerberg cautioned investors that it “would be foolish” to “sell all of the compute and take a short-term profit.” Instead, he described Meta’s approach as a “portfolio” that included a mix of long-term and short-term plans for its compute infrastructure. “As we get closer to personal superintelligence, we are . . . going to need hardware that allows you to seamlessly interact with it,” he noted.
The call also focused on Meta’s sizable ambitions around agentic AI — AI systems that can act on a person’s or business’ behalf, rather than just answer questions — which won’t only be offered to businesses.
Consumers, too, are being promised “personal AI agents,” as well as AI smart glasses that can interact with the world in front of them.
Plus, Meta is using AI technology — specifically, large language models — to more rapidly build out its suite of social apps. Recent launches on this front have included an app for Marketplace sellers, another for Facebook Groups, one for vibe-coded games, and other experiments. More are on the way, Zuckerberg teased.
“I expect it to become a lot easier to ship new apps,” said Zuckerberg. “So we are planning to build out more ideas and use our recommendation systems to scale them to the people who will find them interesting.”
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Meta Platforms reported a precipitous 91% drop in second-quarter free cash flow on Wednesday, underscoring the financial strain of the social media giant’s costly AI buildout despite an uncertain payoff.
The Facebook parent company reported free cash flow of $784 million in the second quarter ended June 30, down from $8.55 billion reported a year earlier, sending its shares down 10% in extended trading.
Meta’s cash flow wipeout echoed Alphabet’s, which last week said it was cash flow negative for the first time ever as it spent $5.9 billion in the second quarter. The rate of spending stunned even the most bullish of Wall Street investors, driving Alphabet’s stock down.
mark Zuckerberg’s Meta reported free cash flow of $784 million in the second quarter, down from $8.55 billion reported a year earlier, sending its shares down 10% in extended trading. Getty Images Meta’s revenue jumped 28% to $60.8 billion in the quarter, the quickest pace of growth since the fourth quarter of 2021, barring the first quarter of 2026.
“We expect that a significant portion of our compute is going to go towards training our models, growing our core business and delivering personal agents and new products, but we also expect to grow a large business serving large customers as well,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on an earnings call.
Meta currently has 32 data centers across the globe in operation or under construction, with 28 of them in the US.
The company also raised the lower end of its capital expenditure outlook. It now expects 2026 capital expenditure to be between $130 billion and $145 billion, compared with its prior forecast of $125 billion to $145 billion. At the beginning of the year it had forecast capex between $115 billion and $135 billion.
Meta now expects 2026 capital expenditure to be between $130 billion and $145 billion, compared with its prior forecast of $125 billion to $145 billion. A $10 billion data center complex under construction in El Paso, Texas. USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect The feverish spending by Big Tech is expected to reach well above $700 billion this year, primarily on AI, while Morgan Stanley has pegged the estimated spend at more than $1 trillion for the next year.
“Meta’s report echoes what we saw from Alphabet and Tesla last week: strong revenue growth, but even faster growth in spending. The market is repricing a deteriorating free cash flow outlook, and in an environment of higher capital costs, that does not sit well,” said Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com.
. Construction on a $1 billion 520-acre Meta data center in Beaver Dam, Wisc. USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect Luke Stillman, a managing director at research firm Madison and Wall, said: “Meta’s underlying ad business that’s financing everything though is still performing well and is our main focus.”
Meta’s legal troubles While investors are scrutinizing Meta’s AI spending, it faces legal risks related to its core business. The company said in a court filing this month that four states were seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties over accusations it designed its Facebook and Instagram platforms to addict young users and misled the public about their safety.
Meta had warned in April that legal and regulatory blowback in the European Union and the US over youth social media issues “could significantly impact” its business and financial results.
Meta had warned in April that legal and regulatory blowback in the European Union and the US over youth social media issues “could significantly impact” its business and financial results. The company said on Wednesday that it continued to see this scrutiny.
On the call, Meta CFO Susan Li said second-quarter operating income would have increased 9% year over year without the company’s legal charges and severance expenses. Operating income actually fell 8%.
“We continue to see scrutiny on youth-related issues in several markets and have a number of youth-related trials scheduled for this year in the US, which may ultimately result in a material loss,” she said in the company’s earnings statement.
Meta ve 2. čtvrtletí nesplnila odhad zisku kvůli vyšším nákladům a právním poplatkům, i když tržby vzrostly o 28 % na 60,8 miliardy USD. Akcie po výsledcích v after-hours klesly asi o 6,7 %.
Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB) missed second-quarter profit estimates on Wednesday, weighed down by a jump in costs including legal charges, even as revenue grew faster than expected.
The social media giant reported earnings per share of $6.18, down 13% year-over-year and well below the $7.22 analysts had expected. Revenue came in at $60.8 billion, up 28% from a year earlier and ahead of the $60.17 billion consensus estimate.
Operating income fell 8% to $18.8 billion, missing the $21.5 billion estimate, as costs and expenses jumped 55% to $42 billion. Operating margin contracted 1,200 basis points to 31%. Net income dropped 14% to $15.8 billion. The results included $2.40 billion of legal proceeding charges recognized in the quarter.
Daily active people came in at 3.6 billion, up 3% year-over-year but just shy of the 3.61 billion estimate.
Advertising revenue rose 27% to $59.4 billion, topping the $59.01 billion estimate, driven by a 14% increase in ad impressions and a 12% rise in average price per ad. Family of Apps revenue climbed 28% to $60.4 billion, with operating income of $23.4 billion for the segment.
Reality Labs revenue was $431 million, below the $441.5 million estimate, while the unit posted an operating loss of $4.62 billion, narrower than the roughly $5 billion loss analysts had forecast.
Meta raised its full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance to a range of $130 billion to $145 billion, up from a prior forecast of $125 billion to $145 billion. Capital expenditure in the quarter totaled $31.08 billion, below the roughly $33.7 billion estimate.
For the third quarter, Meta guided revenue of $61 billion to $64 billion, versus a $63.15 billion estimate. Full-year 2026 expenses are now expected to be $165 billion to $169 billion, raised to account for the second-quarter legal charges. The company said full-year operating income would remain above the 2025 level, and raised its expected remaining tax rate for the year to a range of 15% to 17%, from a prior 13% to 16%.
Headcount stood at 75,472, down 1% year-over-year.
Operating cash flow was $31.9 billion and free cash flow was $784 million. The company paid $1.35 billion in dividends and equivalents during the quarter and held $90.26 billion in cash, equivalents and marketable securities. Long-term debt stood at $83.66 billion.
"AI is accelerating our core business today, powering our next generation of products, and opening the door to entirely new enterprise opportunities," said Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. "The results are already showing, and I'm optimistic about the potential ahead."
Shares of Meta fell around 6.7% in after-hours trading following the results.
Reality Labs společnosti Meta ve druhém čtvrtletí vykázala ztrátu 4,62 miliardy USD. Tržby divize vzrostly na 431 milionů USD z 370 milionů USD před rokem.
Meta's Reality Labs unit, which develops virtual reality devices and wearables powered by AI, lost $4.62 billion in the latest quarter.
In its second-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, Meta said Reality Labs generated revenue of $431 million, up from $370 million a year earlier, while its operating loss widened from $4.53 billion a year ago. Analysts polled by StreetAccount were expecting a second-quarter loss of $5.07 billion on revenue of $423.4 million.
Reality Labs builds the Quest-branded VR headsets and Ray-Ban Meta glasses. The division has generated over $80 billion in total operating losses since late 2020.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg changed Facebook's name to Meta in 2021, underscoring his bet that people would live, work and play in digital worlds. However, the VR market failed to catch on with consumers, resulting in Meta refocusing Reality Labs to devices like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses it develops with eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica.
WATCH: Microsoft and Meta set to report earnings after the bell.
Meta podle Sarah Kunstové z Cleo Capital bude dál masivně utrácet za AI, i když to akcionáři nemají rádi. Firma zvýšila odhad capexu na fiskální rok 2026 na 125–145 miliard USD.
Sarah Kunst, Managing Director at Cleo Capital, argued in a CNBC interview on July 29 that Meta’s enormous AI infrastructure spending reflects Mark Zuckerberg’s personal conviction and is likely to continue despite investor pushback. In her view, Meta’s creative financing adjustments are largely optics, while the underlying capex commitment remains firmly intact.
Zuckerberg Is Prepared to Spend Through Wall Street’s Resistance “Zuck is back in his legacy metaverse era. He has a passion project. He is going to do what he wants to do, and the market is going to have to pull the reins hard if they want him to stop,” she told CNBC. She added that “he still wants to spend. He still thinks that he can kind of capex his way into a really interesting AI product, even though the rest of us maybe aren’t so sure.”
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) raised its full-year 2026 capex forecast to $125-$145 billion, up from the initial $115-$135 billion range issued in January. Q1 capex hit $18.997 billion, and Reality Labs posted an operating loss of $4.03 billion. Zuckerberg’s Q1 shareholder letter promised the company is “on track to deliver personal superintelligence to billions of people.”
The BlackRock Deal Changes the Optics, Not the Spending Kunst pointed to Meta’s arrangement with BlackRock (NYSE:BLK), in which BlackRock takes majority ownership of a data center while Meta remains the key customer. She also flagged reports that Meta is considering selling excess compute capacity to companies like Anthropic. In her reading, “that shift is him saying, look, we understand that you don’t love this capex, and we are going to try to make it as less painful as possible, but we’re still going to be doing that spending.”
BlackRock reported a record AUM of $15.34 trillion in Q2 and has climbed 13.77% over the past month, partly driven by enthusiasm for hyperscaler infrastructure financing. Meta shares trade at $593.41, down 17.04% over the past year and 9.95% year to date.
Reddit Data Backs Investor Discomfort Kunst summed up the mood: “Investors are not loving this capex kind of race that’s happening. But we’re not seeing a huge sort of back away from it.” Reddit sentiment scores dropped to 26 on July 22, the lowest point in the two-week window, during peak earnings-week capex chatter.
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Meta didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
A widely shared r/stocks post noted Apple’s capex sits at 1.8% of revenue while Alphabet’s is 37.5%, sharpening the comparison to Meta’s trajectory. Yet Polymarket traders assign an 85.4% probability to Meta beating quarterly earnings today, and analysts have a consensus target of $824.68 vs Meta’s current price of $594.30, with 49 buy and 8 strong buy ratings against 0 sell ratings.
Why Microsoft May Be the Cleaner AI Infrastructure Bet Kunst sees a smoother risk profile in Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT). She noted that Microsoft trades more like software players and maintains valuable OpenAI exposure, adding that “Microsoft will probably make some money on it. The OpenAI exposure is nice. No matter what that company does.”
Microsoft’s capex is substantial. Q3 FY2026 spending reached $30.88 billion, and Satya Nadella said the company’s “AI business surpassed an annual revenue run rate of $37 billion, up 123% year-over-year.“ Polymarket traders assign a 94.5% probability to Microsoft beating earnings today, versus 85.4% for META. Microsoft trades at $393.35, down 22.63% over the past year, as the market reassesses hyperscaler valuations.
What to Watch Kunst’s message is clear: Meta’s creative financing is a softer wrapper around an unchanged AI spending trajectory. Investors should watch whether Q2 revenue lands within the company’s $58-$61 billion guidance, whether Reality Labs losses widen, and whether Zuckerberg raises the capex ceiling again on tonight’s call.
Meta trades at roughly 19x forward earnings, a discount to its historical valuation. That suggests investors are already pricing in significant capex pressure, but another spending increase could test how much patience the market has left.
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Meta má ve 2. čtvrtletí překonat odhady díky silné reklamě a prvním přínosům investic do AI. Bank of America čeká tržby 60,6 miliardy USD a zisk na akcii 7,50 USD, nad konsensem 60,2 miliardy USD a 7,18 USD. Investoři ale chtějí jasnější důkaz, že vyšší výdaje se vrátí.
Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB) is expected to post second-quarter results above Wall Street expectations, with analysts pointing to healthy advertising demand and early returns from artificial intelligence investment even as investors press the company for clearer evidence its AI spending will pay off.
Bank of America expects Meta to report revenue of $60.6 billion and earnings per share of $7.50, above consensus of $60.2 billion and $7.18, citing healthy ad growth and potential upside from May's workforce reductions. Investors are expected to focus on AI initiatives during the call, including advertising improvements tied to AI model integration, Muse Spark, and potential external compute sales.
For the third quarter, the bank expects Meta to guide revenue to $60.5 billion to $63.5 billion, roughly 18% to 24% growth year over year.
On costs, analysts said Meta could trim the top end of its expense guidance by $1 billion to $2 billion following the layoffs, while potentially raising its capital expenditure outlook to $135 billion to $150 billion, up from $125 billion to $145 billion, on higher memory costs.
Bank of America also raised its 2027 revenue estimate by $5 billion on potential AI capacity benefits following reports of a possible compute deal with Anthropic, now projecting $316 billion in 2027 revenue and $35.00 in earnings per share.
The results arrive amid broader investor unease over AI spending across Big Tech. Wedbush Securities said investors are focused on whether heavy AI infrastructure investment will translate into stronger revenue growth, rather than questioning the long-term outlook.
"We are going through another 'gut check' few weeks ahead for the tech trade as tech investors await a very important Q2 earnings season in July to further validate the AI Revolution buildout," Wedbush wrote, adding that Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, Nvidia, Oracle and Palantir have all come under pressure as investors question when elevated capex will generate returns. The firm called it an "air pocket stage," with roughly $700 billion in Big Tech capex this year fueling the buildout ahead of broader enterprise adoption.
Bank of America separately noted Meta shares have fallen roughly 24% since its third-quarter 2025 call, when the company guided to a step-up in 2026 spending, versus a 5% gain for the Nasdaq. The bank said Meta's compute demand is structural, with AI already improving ad targeting, though the market remains uncertain how quickly newer bets like subscriptions and business agents will monetize. Analysts expect more clarity over the next two earnings cycles.
Meta reports second-quarter results after markets close tonight.
Meta má po uzavření trhu oznámit výsledky hospodaření za 2. čtvrtletí; analytici čekají upravený zisk na akcii (EPS) 7,22 USD a tržby 60,17 mld. USD. Tržby mají meziročně stoupnout o 26 %.
Meta is scheduled to report second-quarter results after the close of regular trading on Wednesday.
Here's what Wall Street is expecting, according to estimates from analysts polled by LSEG:
Earnings per share: $7.22 adjustedRevenue: $60.17 billionMeta is projected to show revenue growth of 26% from $47.52 billion in the same period a year ago, as the company's core advertising business continues to benefit from advancements in artificial intelligence.
While Meta's digital ad business remains healthy, the company is trying to show that it can compete directly in the market for AI models and services, where OpenAI, Anthropic and Google have big leads.
On the earnings call, investors will be listening closely to what Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has to say about the company's efforts to more directly monetize its various AI-related efforts. Earlier this month, Meta debuted the Muse Spark 1.1 model, which AI chief Alexandr Wang said represents the "strongest model for agentic and coding work yet" and at a cheaper price than offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic.
Meta also released Muse Image, which contains certain features that power users and creators can access if they sign up for one of the company's new monthly subscription plans that were revealed in May.
The company has been aggressively investing in a new AI strategy since hiring Wang in June 2025 in a deal that involved a $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, Wang's startup. Meanwhile, Meta is pouring money into AI infrastructure as it tries to keep pace with Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft when it comes to building data centers and securing AI chips and systems needed to run models and workloads.
On Tuesday, Meta announced a venture with BlackRock to create a $14 billion data center project in El Paso, Texas, just a few weeks after disclosing that its big Hyperion data center project in rural Louisiana would cost over $50 billion. Earlier in July, Meta revealed plans to build a $9 billion data center in Alberta, Canada.
Meta shares are down 10% this year, badly trailing the Nasdaq, as Wall Street questions whether the company's hefty investments will produce returns.
"The gap between capex intensity and diversified monetization remains the central debate for the stock," analysts at Wedbush wrote in a report last week. They have the equivalent of a hold rating on the shares and said the uncertainty is "the reason we remain on the sidelines despite Meta's valuation discount to peers."
In its last earnings report in April, Meta boosted its capex forecast for the year to a high of $145 billion from $135 billion. Analysts expect Meta to post $33.9 billion in capex for the second quarter and are projecting $136.7 billion for the year.
Alphabet shares sank last week after the company hiked its guidance for 2026 capex to as much as $205 billion from a prior prediction of up to $190 billion.
Among the four leading hyperscalers, Meta is the only one without a cloud infrastructure business. But Zuckerberg has indicated recently that the company will be looking to sell some AI capacity to third parties. Anthropic is currently engaged in preliminary talks to lease AI-related computing capacity from Meta, CNBC confirmed earlier this month.
For the second quarter, Meta is expected to report 3.61 billion daily active people (DAP), according to StreetAccount, a number that refers to usage of its family of apps. Analysts anticipate second-quarter average revenue per person of $16.65.
Meta's Reality Labs unit, which develops virtual reality, augmented reality and AI-powered wearable devices like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, is expected to post a loss for the quarter of $5.07 billion on revenue of $423.4 million, according to StreetAccount.
WATCH: AI and capex in focus for Meta this week: Here's what to expect.
Meta jedná s Anthropic o dvouleté smlouvě za 10 miliard USD na pronájem přebytečné kapacity pro AI. Pokud se uzavře, může to otevřít nový zdroj příjmů.
Meta Platforms (META -0.06%) has underperformed broader equities over the past year. One of the most important reasons why is that although it has ramped up spending to capitalize on what it perceives as a large opportunity in artificial intelligence (AI), the market doesn't see it that way. Meta's increased spending could lead to lower profits and margins if it doesn't achieve the return on investment it expects, the argument goes. However, Meta Platforms' CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, remains unapologetically bullish on AI. Under his leadership, the company is reportedly working on a deal that could justify the billions it is pouring into the technology.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Meta's new business venture is slowly taking shape Several weeks ago, reports surfaced suggesting that Meta Platforms was planning to launch a cloud business. The company is apparently looking to rent out excess AI computing capacity to other corporations. Now, Meta is reportedly in early talks to do exactly that with Anthropic, a leading AI company, although the deal is far from done and could still fall through. Anthropic builds large language models (LLMs) and is the corporation behind Claude, a family of LLMs that are arguably among the best on the market. Meta could sign a two-year, $10 billion deal to rent excess AI capacity to Anthropic.
The social media specialist generated about $200 billion in sales last year; an extra $5 billion per year may not move the needle. However, if Meta does secure this deal, it might only be the first of many. Anthropic isn't a small client, and it has historically relied on Amazon (AMZN -0.19%), the industry leader, for its cloud computing needs. Securing a client like this will be a great way for Meta Platforms to enter the cloud market. As analysts project rapid expansion in AI infrastructure spending over the next several years, Meta could sign similar deals with other big names and turn its cloud computing business into a meaningful growth driver.
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Is Meta Platforms stock a buy? Meta Platforms' financial results remain strong. The company has improved its core advertising business thanks to AI. Sophisticated recommendation algorithms have helped increase engagement across its websites and apps, while the company has also made it much easier for advertisers to launch ad campaigns. So far, Zuckerberg's optimism has borne fruit, and while some investors worry the AI tailwind will end, there are strong reasons to believe otherwise.
With more than three billion daily active users, Meta Platforms may only be in the early innings of its efforts to monetize AI. In the future, the company could make money from several initiatives, including subscriptions, AI agents for businesses and customers on WhatsApp, among many other monetization schemes the company could launch. Meta Platforms is still fine-tuning its cloud computing business, but its core operations are already strong, and this new opportunity may be the icing on the cake. That's why Meta Platforms' shares are worth buying on the dip.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference at the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., July 9, 2026. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
July 28 (Reuters) - The U.S. government should not block Chinese models to gain an edge in the AI race, Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab CEO Mark Zuckerberg told the Financial Times in an interview published on Tuesday, as Washington warns that Chinese companies could face penalties over the alleged theft of U.S. technology.
Zuckerberg said that banning cutting-edge Chinese AI would not be "an effective solution," adding that U.S. companies should "systematically” identify bottlenecks and roadblocks in order to better compete with Chinese AI firms.
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Beijing-based Moonshot AI, whose recently released Kimi K3 model has drawn attention for its coding capabilities, has intensified debate in Washington over whether Chinese developers are copying U.S. models or rapidly closing the technological gap through their own research.
The Trump administration on Tuesday unveiled bans that target imports of new Chinese robots and power inverters, seeking to protect the U.S. AI buildout from national security threats and reshore key industries slated for explosive growth.
Separately, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned that Chinese companies could face financial sanctions or placement on the Commerce Department's Entity List, which restricts access to U.S. technology.
When asked for a comment on the FT interview, Meta referred to an opinion piece by Zuckerberg in the Wall Street Journal.
Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Mrigank Dhaniwala
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Meta Platforms má za 2. čtvrtletí očekávané reklamní tržby ve výši 59,035 mld. USD, což představuje meziroční nárůst o 26,8 %. Růst táhnou AI v reklamních systémech a vyšší zapojení uživatelů napříč Family of Apps.
Key Takeaways Meta Platforms' Q2 ad revenues are estimated at $59.035B, up 26.8% year over year.AI ad systems improved conversions, while generative tools helped advertisers boost campaign returns.Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp gained from AI recommendations, translation, messaging and wider ad reach. Meta Platforms’ (META - Free Report) second-quarter 2026 results, set to be reported on July 29, are expected to reflect the benefits of higher advertising revenues, driven by sustained growth in user engagement and ad impressions across its Family of Apps. In the first quarter of 2026, ad impressions increased 19% year over year, supported by user growth, stronger engagement and ad-load optimization. The average price per ad also rose 12%, reflecting improved ad performance, healthier advertiser demand and favorable currency movements.
AI-driven improvements to Meta’s advertising systems are likely to have remained a major growth catalyst in the to-be-reported quarter. Enhancements to the Lattice and GEM models drove a more than 6% improvement in conversion rates for landing-page-view ads, while the Adaptive Ranking Model generated a 1.6% conversion-rate increase across major Facebook and Instagram surfaces. Better ad selection and targeting likely encouraged advertisers to increase spending by improving campaign returns. Increasing adoption of Meta’s generative-AI advertising tools is also expected to have aided second-quarter performance.
The Meta AI business assistant, AI connectors and value-optimization tools are also helping advertisers create content, resolve account issues and improve return on ad spending. Meta is further optimizing when, where and to whom ads are displayed rather than depending only on higher ad loads. Ad-load increases on Instagram Feed and Reels contributed to first-quarter impression growth, although user and engagement gains remained the larger driver. The company’s measured approach to placing ads at more relevant moments is likely to have supported incremental conversions without materially weakening the user experience in the second quarter.
These trends are likely to have continued supporting advertising revenues in the to-be-reported quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Meta’s second-quarter advertising revenues is pegged at $59.035 billion, indicating growth of 26.8% year over year. Click here to learn how Meta’s overall second-quarter performance is likely to be.
META’s AI Push to Aid Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp in Q2Instagram is expected to have benefited significantly from AI-powered recommendation and content-understanding improvements. Ranking enhancements drove a 10% increase in Reels time spent in the first quarter of 2026. Meta doubled the length of user-interaction sequences used to train Instagram models and improved the richness of the data describing each interaction, allowing its systems to better understand users’ interests. Faster indexing and improved content recognition also increased the freshness and diversity of recommendations, with same-day posts accounting for more than 30% of recommended Reels.
AI translation and dubbing are likely to have further expanded Instagram’s content inventory and engagement. More than half a billion users on each of Facebook and Instagram were watching AI-translated videos weekly. Meta’s policy of allowing creators’ videos to reach viewers across different languages and regions means these capabilities are likely to have increased watch time, improved content discovery and created additional advertising opportunities on Instagram during the to-be-reported quarter.
Threads is expected to have benefited from improvements in AI-powered content recommendations, particularly around timeliness, relevance and cultural trends. The platform had more than 150 million daily active users, while Meta continued investing in creator partnerships and priority topics such as sports, entertainment and K-pop. Ads were expanded to more than 200 countries, and improved recommendations are likely to have strengthened user engagement and advertising inventory, although Threads is not expected to be a meaningful contributor to Meta’s overall revenues in 2026.
WhatsApp’s prospects are likely to have benefited from Meta’s AI push through business messaging, Business AIs and the gradual rollout of Status ads. Business AIs were facilitating more than 10 million conversations per week, up from 1 million at the beginning of the year, helping small businesses answer customer questions and engage potential buyers.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Meta’s second-quarter Family of Apps revenues is pegged at $59.605 billion, indicating growth of 26.4% year over year.
Zacks Rank & Upcoming Earnings to WatchMeta currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Reddit (RDDT - Free Report) , Arrow Electronics (ARW - Free Report) , and HubSpot (HUBS - Free Report) are some better-ranked stocks in the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector. Each of the three stocks sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
Reddit, Arrow Electronics and HubSpot are expected to report their quarterly results on July 30, Aug. 6, and Aug. 5, respectively. Shares of Reddit and HubSpot have dropped 22.1% and 44.5%, respectively, while Arrow Electronics has jumped 93.5% year to date.
At $593.87, Meta (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) is a Hold heading into its July 29 earnings report. Options markets are pricing in an approximately 8% binary move, or a $49 swing, which makes buying the day before the report a bet on event risk rather than the business.
Meta runs the largest advertising franchise on the internet through Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, and Messenger, alongside Reality Labs. The stock has been range-bound for months as investors weigh a booming ad engine against rapidly escalating AI infrastructure costs. Shares are down 8.05% in the past week and 16.4% over the last year, setting up a report that could break either direction.
Why the Ad Engine Justifies a Bid Q1 2026 was strong. Revenue jumped 33.08% year over year to $56.31 billion, with ad impressions up 19% and price per ad up 12%. Family of Apps daily actives reached 3.56 billion. Operating cash flow of $32.23 billion funds the AI buildout without straining the balance sheet.
Valuation looks reasonable. Meta trades at 21x trailing earnings and 19x forward earnings, well below most mega-cap peers. Polymarket traders assign a 94.7% probability that Meta beats Q2 consensus, and July 31 call open interest is running nearly 2.5x put open interest.
Why the CapEx Bill Could Sink the Stock Meta raised full-year capital expenditure guidance to $125 billion to $145 billion, up from a prior $115 to $135 billion range, citing higher component pricing and more data center capacity. Q1 capex alone rose 46.8% year over year, and total expenses climbed 35%. Reality Labs continues to bleed roughly $4.03 billion per quarter.
The market has already punished a good report. After the Q1 blowout, shares fell from $671.77 at filing to $608.75 the next day. Q3 2025 fell 11.33% on earnings day despite a beat, and Q1 2026 dropped 8.55%. Youth-related litigation trials scheduled for 2026 add another overhang.
Why Patience Beats Conviction Right Now The fundamentals support holding, and the setup argues for patience. Ad revenue is compounding at a 30%-plus clip, but every dollar of upside is being reinvested into GPUs and data centers whose returns are unproven. Reddit sentiment swung from bearish 22 mid-week to bullish 72 by earnings eve, signaling uncertainty.
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Meta didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
The trigger to reassess is the Q2 earnings report itself. Any further capex revision above $145 billion, or Q3 revenue guidance below the current $58 billion to $61 billion Q2 range, likely delivers a dip. A clean beat with steady spending discipline flips the verdict to Buy.
What the Targets Show Meta currently trades at $593.87 against a consensus analyst target of $825.84, implying 28.6% upside if targets are met. Coverage is heavily positive with 8 Strong Buy, 49 Buy, 6 Hold, and 0 Sell ratings.
The stock is off 9.88% year to date while the S&P 500 proxy SPY has moved from $718.66 at Meta’s Q1 filing to roughly $739.09 currently, meaning Meta has meaningfully underperformed the broader market. Shares sit below both the 50-day moving average of $606.07 and the 200-day at $638.07.
Why Waiting Is the Right Call At $593.87, Meta is a Hold. The July 29 earnings report is a binary event with a pre-priced $49 swing. Buyers today absorb the risk that management raises the $125 to $145 billion capex band again. Every quarter over the last year, capex guidance has ratcheted higher, and the Q1 stock reaction of negative 8.55% shows how the market treats those revisions even when earnings crush estimates.
A pullback into the $540 to $560 zone would compress the forward multiple to roughly 17x and restore a margin of safety consistent with prior post-earnings entry points. A capex revision above $150 billion combined with deceleration in ad pricing would materially change the risk profile. Both will be knowable when the earnings report lands.
Patience risks missing a possible 8% gap higher. Impatience risks buying the top of a range that has held for a full year. Waiting one week to see the earnings report and the capex line specifically offers the clearest read on risk versus reward at this price.
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Meta má po uzavření trhu ve středu oznámit výsledky a podle sázek na Kalshi má na hovoru zdůraznit chytré brýle Ray-Ban Meta a cloud, zatímco témata sociálních sítí spíše obejde. Trh dává 90% šanci, že zazní slovo „cloud“, 74% šanci na zmínku „Ray-Ban“ a jen 15% šanci, že Meta zmíní „age verification“.
Meta is set to report earnings after the market close Wednesday, and traders on prediction market platform Kalshi think the Instagram parent will use its conference call to highlight its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and push into the cloud market, while steering clear of social media policy debates.
In a "mentions market" — where speculators on Kalshi are asked to place trades on whether specific words will be used during a call or speech — for the Meta earnings call, traders place 90% odds that the hyperscaler's management will say the word "cloud."
Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Meta was developing a cloud infrastructure business to sell access to raw computing power.
Speculators are only a little less certain that Meta on the call will say "Ray-Ban," its smart glass partner, giving it a 74% chance. Last month, Meta debuted a new smart glasses model at a lower price, developed with Ray-Ban parent EssilorLuxottica.
Traders are think there's a 61% chance Meta will discuss its chips by using the word "silicon."
Odds that Meta mentions "Hyperion," the name of its data center project in rural Louisiana stand at just 27%.
And don't expect Meta to discuss social media policy either.
While the U.K. is the latest country to pursue bans on children using social media, traders think there's only a 15% chance Meta mentions "age verification."
Traders think there's just a 20% chance Meta uses the terms "prediction market" or "Kalshi." Reports in June revealed Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg directed staff to build a prediction market platform, and NPR reported later the same month that Meta at one point was in talks to acquire Kalshi.
Disclosure: CNBC and Kalshi have a commercial relationship that includes customer acquisition and a minority investment.
Meta Platforms čeká po uzavření trhu výsledky za 2. čtvrtletí; trh sleduje hlavně aktualizovaný výhled kapitálových výdajů, které už firma zvýšila na nejméně 125 miliard USD.
Meta Platforms META shares are inching lower heading into the company’s fiscal Q2 results set to be posted after the market close on Wednesday, July 29th.
Consensus is for the tech behemoth to record $60.2 billion in revenue on $7.18 a share of earnings, which would represent roughly no change in bottom-line on a year-over-year basis.
Still, the derivatives market seems to believe Meta stock will recover some of its recent loss after the quarterly print tomorrow.
As of writing, the put-to-call ratio on options contracts expiring July 31st sits at 0.66, indicating a bullish skew, with the upper price set at nearly $636 signaling potential for a 7% rally through the end of this week.
Interestingly, between the current and options-implied price are META’s major moving averages – which means a positive reaction to the Q2 release could receive an additional boost from technical momentum.
Note that META shares have a history of closing July with a nearly 5% gain on average, a seasonal pattern that reinforces the bull case for the near-term.
Investors should note, however, that it will ultimately be Meta Platforms’ updated capex guidance that will determine the near-term trajectory for its stock price.
Management has already raised its full-year outlook for capital expenditures, currently set at $125 billion at least, and Wall Street will be watching closely for any further upward revisions.
Crucially, the multinational isn’t suffering from a lack of monetization – AI-driven targeting tools continue to deliver tangible returns by boosting ad pricing power and user engagement.
However, the broader market narrative has turned relentlessly hostile toward growing infrastructure budgets.
In a tape where investors have repeatedly penalized tech mega-caps for swelling AI outlays, Meta must prove that its aggressive infrastructure investments are expanding margins rather than simply eroding free cash flow.
Any weakness on that front would likely trigger a near-term sell-off in Meta shares.
From a valuation perspective, META stock is one of the more attractive artificial intelligence (AI) beneficiaries, with a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of about 20x.
That said, executives have predominantly sold shares this year, and while they may have legitimate reasons (diversification and personal financial planning) for selling, the optics of the activity sure are less than ideal for investors.
On the flip side, however, Wall Street hasn’t thrown in the towel on Meta Platforms heading into its Q2 earnings release.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the consensus rating on META remains at “Buy” – with the mean price target of $822 indicating potential for a more than 35% rally over the next 12 months.
A small 0.35% dividend yield makes the hyperscaler even more attractive to own at current levels.
Cloverfields Capital Group LP v prvním čtvrtletí snížila podíl v Meta Platforms o 17,8 % a prodala 2 193 akcií. Po prodeji držela 10 094 akcií v hodnotě 5 775 000 USD.
Cloverfields Capital Group LP reduced its position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 17.8% in the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The fund owned 10,094 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 2,193 shares during the period. Meta Platforms comprises approximately 1.9% of Cloverfields Capital Group LP’s holdings, making the stock its 14th largest position. Cloverfields Capital Group LP’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $5,775,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
Several other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. RHL Group LLC bought a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth approximately $28,000. Strategic Wealth Advisors LLC bought a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the 4th quarter valued at $29,000. Niles Investment Management LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth $29,000. Bayban increased its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 100.0% in the 1st quarter. Bayban now owns 70 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $40,000 after purchasing an additional 35 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC bought a new position in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth $42,000. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Key Stories Impacting Meta Platforms Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: Analysts and investors see Meta as attractively valued ahead of Wednesday’s earnings, with estimates suggesting its forward earnings multiple is below historical norms and the broader market. Meta’s record of 13 consecutive earnings beats raises the possibility of another upside surprise. Meta Platforms: Time To Be Greedy Positive Sentiment: Revenue growth is expected to benefit from user expansion, higher advertising prices and increased ad volume. Meta is also expanding Meta AI by placing its chatbot in Threads direct messages, potentially increasing engagement and creating additional monetization opportunities over time. Threads users can now chat with Meta AI in their DMs Positive Sentiment: Supporters argue Meta can absorb elevated capital expenditures, including as much as $145 billion in 2026 AI spending, because of its strong cash generation and advertising business. Its AI infrastructure plans could also create opportunities to sell excess computing capacity at premium prices. Meta Can Absorb Capex Trouble Neutral Sentiment: Meta reports results after the market closes Wednesday, and options traders are pricing a sizable post-earnings move. The report, guidance and commentary on AI returns and spending will likely determine the stock’s near-term direction. Meta Reports Earnings Wednesday Negative Sentiment: Concerns about rising costs, heavy capital expenditures and uncertain returns on AI investments are weighing on sentiment. The broader technology sector has recently seen investors sell or fail to reward stocks even after strong earnings, contributing to Meta’s recent decline. Meta Q2 Earnings Loom Negative Sentiment: Meta faces ongoing legal and reputational risks. Tennessee attorneys allege that company leadership ignored internal research about Instagram’s effects on teenagers, while a separate lawsuit alleges failures to prevent abuse on Meta’s platforms. Adverse rulings or regulatory action could increase costs and constrain product practices. Meta disregarded its own research on teen harm Insider Buying and Selling at Meta Platforms In related news, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 7,847 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $607.83, for a total transaction of $4,769,642.01. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief technology officer directly owned 414 shares in the company, valued at approximately $251,641.62. This trade represents a 94.99% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, CFO Susan J. Li sold 9,195 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction on Monday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $607.84, for a total transaction of $5,589,088.80. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief financial officer owned 13,186 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $8,014,978.24. This represents a 41.08% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Over the last quarter, insiders sold 36,393 shares of company stock valued at $22,141,163. 13.53% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.
Analyst Ratings Changes Several brokerages have recently commented on META. Bank of America lowered their price objective on Meta Platforms from $885.00 to $820.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 20th. BNP Paribas Exane assumed coverage on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Tuesday, June 2nd. They set an “outperform” rating for the company. KeyCorp reaffirmed an “overweight” rating and set a $760.00 target price on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. Rosenblatt Securities reissued a “buy” rating and set a $1,015.00 price objective on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, May 28th. Finally, Mizuho decreased their target price on Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $835.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, May 5th. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have given a Buy rating, eight have given a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, Meta Platforms currently has an average rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $835.64.
Read Our Latest Stock Analysis on Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms Stock Down 0.2% NASDAQ:META opened at $593.87 on Tuesday. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a current ratio of 2.35 and a quick ratio of 2.35. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 1-year low of $520.26 and a 1-year high of $796.25. The company has a 50-day moving average of $604.17 and a 200 day moving average of $625.06. The firm has a market cap of $1.50 trillion, a PE ratio of 21.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.25.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The social networking company reported $10.44 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.67 by $3.77. The company had revenue of $56.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $55.56 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 36.93% and a net margin of 32.84%.The firm’s quarterly revenue was up 33.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm earned $6.43 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts anticipate that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 29.49 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Investors of record on Monday, June 15th were given a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 15th. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.4%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is currently 7.63%.
Meta Platforms Company Profile (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
See Also Five stocks we like better than Meta Platforms AirJoule’s Kubota Deal Is a Major Validation—But the Hard Part Comes Next Dividend Stocks May Be the Quiet Rotation Trade Investors Are Missing Now Refiner Stocks Are Near Record Highs—Can Iran-Driven Margins Keep Them There? Verizon May Be an AI Infrastructure Stock Hiding in Plain Sight Want to see what other hedge funds are holding META? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report).
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Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership grew its position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 121.8% in the 1st quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 139,114 shares of the social networking company’s stock after acquiring an additional 76,387 shares during the quarter. Arrowstreet Capital Limited Partnership’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $79,591,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.
Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. RHL Group LLC purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter valued at approximately $28,000. Strategic Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter valued at about $29,000. Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at about $42,000. Bayban raised its holdings in Meta Platforms by 100.0% during the first quarter. Bayban now owns 70 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $40,000 after purchasing an additional 35 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Key Capital Management INC purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth about $48,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.
Meta Platforms Trading Down 0.2% NASDAQ META opened at $593.87 on Tuesday. The firm has a market capitalization of $1.50 trillion, a PE ratio of 21.59, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.01 and a beta of 1.25. The company has a 50-day simple moving average of $604.17 and a 200-day simple moving average of $625.06. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a one year low of $520.26 and a one year high of $796.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a quick ratio of 2.35 and a current ratio of 2.35.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The social networking company reported $10.44 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $6.67 by $3.77. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 36.93% and a net margin of 32.84%.The firm had revenue of $56.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $55.56 billion. During the same period last year, the company earned $6.43 earnings per share. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 33.1% on a year-over-year basis. On average, equities analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 29.49 earnings per share for the current year.
Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Investors of record on Monday, June 15th were issued a dividend of $0.525 per share. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.4%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 15th. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio (DPR) is presently 7.63%.
Analyst Ratings Changes Several equities analysts have weighed in on META shares. Morgan Stanley dropped their price target on Meta Platforms from $825.00 to $775.00 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, March 30th. Wolfe Research cut their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $800.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, April 10th. Sanford C. Bernstein cut their price objective on Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $850.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Thursday, April 30th. Needham & Company LLC restated a “hold” rating on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Wednesday, July 8th. Finally, Rothschild & Co Redburn increased their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $1,000.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday, July 21st. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have given a Buy rating, eight have given a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat.com, the company currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $835.64.
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Trending Headlines about Meta Platforms Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: Analysts and investors see Meta as attractively valued ahead of Wednesday’s earnings, with estimates suggesting its forward earnings multiple is below historical norms and the broader market. Meta’s record of 13 consecutive earnings beats raises the possibility of another upside surprise. Meta Platforms: Time To Be Greedy Positive Sentiment: Revenue growth is expected to benefit from user expansion, higher advertising prices and increased ad volume. Meta is also expanding Meta AI by placing its chatbot in Threads direct messages, potentially increasing engagement and creating additional monetization opportunities over time. Threads users can now chat with Meta AI in their DMs Positive Sentiment: Supporters argue Meta can absorb elevated capital expenditures, including as much as $145 billion in 2026 AI spending, because of its strong cash generation and advertising business. Its AI infrastructure plans could also create opportunities to sell excess computing capacity at premium prices. Meta Can Absorb Capex Trouble Neutral Sentiment: Meta reports results after the market closes Wednesday, and options traders are pricing a sizable post-earnings move. The report, guidance and commentary on AI returns and spending will likely determine the stock’s near-term direction. Meta Reports Earnings Wednesday Negative Sentiment: Concerns about rising costs, heavy capital expenditures and uncertain returns on AI investments are weighing on sentiment. The broader technology sector has recently seen investors sell or fail to reward stocks even after strong earnings, contributing to Meta’s recent decline. Meta Q2 Earnings Loom Negative Sentiment: Meta faces ongoing legal and reputational risks. Tennessee attorneys allege that company leadership ignored internal research about Instagram’s effects on teenagers, while a separate lawsuit alleges failures to prevent abuse on Meta’s platforms. Adverse rulings or regulatory action could increase costs and constrain product practices. Meta disregarded its own research on teen harm Insider Transactions at Meta Platforms In other news, Director Robert M. Kimmitt sold 500 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, July 1st. The shares were sold at an average price of $607.75, for a total transaction of $303,875.00. Following the sale, the director owned 3,443 shares in the company, valued at $2,092,483.25. The trade was a 12.68% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, insider Curtis J. Mahoney sold 2,079 shares of the stock in a transaction on Wednesday, May 27th. The shares were sold at an average price of $609.92, for a total value of $1,268,023.68. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 1,118 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $681,890.56. The trade was a 65.03% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 36,393 shares of company stock valued at $22,141,163 in the last three months. 13.53% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.
Meta Platforms Company Profile (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
Read More Five stocks we like better than Meta Platforms AirJoule’s Kubota Deal Is a Major Validation—But the Hard Part Comes Next Dividend Stocks May Be the Quiet Rotation Trade Investors Are Missing Now Refiner Stocks Are Near Record Highs—Can Iran-Driven Margins Keep Them There? Verizon May Be an AI Infrastructure Stock Hiding in Plain Sight Want to see what other hedge funds are holding META? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report).
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Meta a BlackRock oznámily společný projekt datového centra v El Pasu v Texasu za zhruba 14 miliard USD. Areál má mít kapacitu 1 gigawattu výpočetní kapacity a provoz má začít v roce 2028.
Meta and BlackRock announce a venture to finance the development and operation of a data center campus in El Paso, Texas
, /PRNewswire/ -- Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) and BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) today announced a venture to develop and own a data center campus in El Paso, Texas.
Meta has spent more than 15 years developing, constructing, and operating data center facilities. Meta Compute's strategy builds on that foundation, pairing Meta's infrastructure expertise with capital partnerships that deliver the speed and flexibility its long-term AI ambitions require.
BlackRock, one of the world's leading investment management firms, together with Global Infrastructure Partners and HPS Investment Partners, both a part of BlackRock, complements this strategy. BlackRock delivers substantial capital at scale, along with deep expertise in infrastructure investment and private financing — enabling the rapid execution of mission-critical data center projects. Meta selected BlackRock as its partner following a highly competitive process, reflecting the company's disciplined approach to diversifying its infrastructure financing as it scales Meta Compute.
"Building the infrastructure for superintelligence is key to making sure the benefits of this technology are distributed to everyone," said Mark Zuckerberg, Meta founder and CEO. "Our partnership with Larry and the team at BlackRock allows us to move faster and at greater scale -- pairing our deep expertise in designing and operating world-class data centers with one of the world's leading infrastructure investors."
"We're excited to partner with Mark and the Meta leadership team on the El Paso data center campus, which will create thousands of skilled jobs and help drive economic growth in the local community," said Larry Fink, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BlackRock. "Companies around the world are looking for long-term strategic partners to help develop their most important projects, and BlackRock is built to meet that need. This transaction highlights the strength and scale of our combined capabilities with GIP and HPS, and how we can offer clients compelling investment opportunities at the center of AI infrastructure and energy."
The state-of-the-art data center campus, currently under construction in El Paso, Texas, will have 1 gigawatt of compute capacity and will play an essential role in bringing Meta's AI technologies to life, accelerating progress on AI models and supporting enhancements to the core business. Meta will provide construction management, administrative, and property management services for the campus, and will be the initial sole occupant of the campus upon completion. The transaction is expected to close in the coming days and the venture expects to begin bringing this capacity online in 2028.
Empowering El Paso's Economy
The El Paso data center represents an investment of over $10 billion from Meta — supporting more than 4,000 construction jobs at peak and 300 operational jobs once complete. Over 2,300 workers are already onsite.
The site is part of America's Workforce Academy, a free skilled trades training where participants are guaranteed a job upon graduation with a Meta partner at one of the company's data center sites. Additionally, Meta provided a $500,000 grant to El Paso public schools to support workforce development by connecting students with practical, real-world learning experiences and career pathways in STEM and the skilled trades.
Meta will also continue to partner with local nonprofits to support water restoration projects that boost water supply, enhance water quality, provide safe drinking water and help restore local habitats.
BlackRock is also supporting workforce development in Texas through Future Builders, a national initiative funded by The BlackRock Foundation. Through a nearly $30 million investment, the program is expected to train more than 12,000 electricians over three years, helping strengthen the workforce needed to support Texas' continued growth and rising demand for energy, infrastructure, and data center development.
Project Structure and Financing
Funds managed by BlackRock will own an 80% interest in the venture, while Meta will retain the remaining 20% ownership. The parties have committed to fund their respective pro rata share of the approximately $14 billion in total development costs for the buildings and long-lived power, cooling, and connectivity infrastructure at the campus. At financial close, Meta will contribute the venture land and construction-in-progress assets valued at approximately $2.3 billion, and BlackRock will make a cash contribution of approximately $4.9 billion. Meta will receive a one-time distribution of approximately $1 billion to align ownership stakes in accordance with the 80/20 ownership split. A portion of BlackRock's investment will be funded with proceeds from a $12.5 billion debt financing.
Meta will enter into lease agreements with the venture for use of the entire data center campus. The leases have a four-year initial term with four options to extend, providing Meta with long-term flexibility over a potential 20-year term. Meta also will provide residual value guarantees (RVG) which have an aggregate threshold of approximately $13 billion that decreases over time. If certain conditions are met within the first 16 years of the lease term, Meta's maximum RVG payment would equal any shortfall between the fair value at that time and the RVG threshold for the covered property.
Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and J.P. Morgan Securities LLC served as financial advisors to Meta in connection with this transaction. Latham & Watkins LLP served as legal counsel to Meta on the transaction and Eversheds Sutherland (US) LLP advised Meta on leasing matters. Arthur D. Little LLC acted as commercial due diligence advisor to Meta. Marsh provided Meta project risk analysis and insurance services. Arup provided technical and environmental independent engineer services to Meta. Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel to the BlackRock funds on the transaction. Charles River Associates, Turner & Townsend, and Marsh acted as technical advisors to BlackRock. Milbank LLP served as legal counsel to J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC.
About Meta
Meta is building the future of human connection, powered by artificial intelligence and immersive technologies. When Facebook launched in 2004, it changed the way people connect. Apps like Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp further empowered billions around the world. Now, Meta is moving beyond 2D screens toward experiences that foster deeper connections and unlock new possibilities.
About BlackRock
BlackRock's purpose is to help more and more people experience financial well-being. As a fiduciary to investors and a leading provider of financial technology, we help millions of people build savings that serve them throughout their lives by making investing easier and more affordable. For additional information on BlackRock, please visit www.blackrock.com/corporate.
Contacts
Meta Investors:
Chad Heaton
[email protected] / investor.atmeta.com
Meta Press:
Matt Tye
[email protected] / meta.com/news
Meta is trying every angle it has to make its artificial intelligence (AI) bet pay off. It has spent more than $100 billion building the infrastructure. It has restructured its research division around what CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls “personal superintelligence.” It has pushed AI into ad targeting, into WhatsApp business tools, into Ray-Ban smart glasses. This month, it pushed AI into something it had not fully attempted before: the workday.
Meta AI’s latest upgrade, powered by a new model called Muse Spark 1.1, lets the assistant connect to a user’s email and calendar, conduct web research, generate presentation slides and complete multi-step tasks with less repeated prompting, Meta said in a Friday (July 24) announcement. “Meta AI is starting to take action on your behalf,” the company wrote, describing a shift from a chatbot that answers questions to an assistant that follows through on requests over time. The features are rolling out in select markets through the Meta AI app and meta.ai, with WhatsApp integration expected in the coming weeks.
Connecting Email and Calendar Puts Meta AI in Enterprise Territory The specific capabilities Meta highlighted—connecting to email and calendar, producing slide decks, running multi-step research and automating recurring tasks—are the core feature set of enterprise productivity software, the exact category Microsoft has built Copilot around and Google has built into Workspace with Gemini. Meta built its base with lifestyle use cases: a mood board assembled from Facebook Marketplace listings for a kitchen renovation, or a week-by-week half-marathon training schedule, absolutegeeks.com reported. But connecting email and calendar access, producing presentations and running structured research are the identical building blocks of a workplace copilot, wrapped in a consumer interface Meta already has installed on billions of phones.
That distribution is both Meta’s real advantage and its real challenge. Meta AI already reaches users across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, giving it a scale no enterprise AI vendor can match on day one. But reaching a user casually is different from being trusted with a work email inbox.
ChatGPT converts 83.1% of paid subscribers who have workplace access to their AI platform of choice, according to Recon Analytics data on the U.S. enterprise AI market. Microsoft Copilot converts only 35.8%, and its market share among paid AI subscribers fell from 18.8% in July 2025 to 11.5% in January, a 39% contraction, even with Copilot bundled directly into Windows and Microsoft 365.
Investors Want Proof the AI Spending Is Paying Off Meta is set to report second-quarter results on Wednesday (July 29), and the pattern from recent quarters has been consistent: heavier spending, bigger promises and a request for more patience. In its first-quarter report, Meta raised its full-year capital expenditure guidance to $125 billion to $145 billion, up from a prior range of $115 billion to $135 billion, citing higher memory prices and additional data center capacity, PYMNTS reported. The company said at the time it has consistently underestimated its own compute needs
Muse Spark 1.1 gives Meta a new answer heading into that call: evidence the spending is producing capability beyond better ad targeting. An assistant that manages calendars, drafts presentations and completes multi-step work is a second growth story, one that could eventually generate revenue the way Microsoft charges for Copilot seats rather than one that only shows up as an efficiency gain inside the existing ad business.
Meta Platforms vyhlíží výsledky po uzavření trhu 29. července, zatímco investoři sledují hlavně investice do AI a možný cloudový byznys. Akcie jsou letos téměř o 10 % níže.
It’s shaping up to be an interesting earnings season for the big tech stocks. Alphabet set the tone on July 22 with a solid second-quarter earnings report that saw revenue jump 24% from a year ago to $119.76 billion. Growth in Google Cloud was even better at 82%.
One might think that investors would celebrate Alphabet’s commitment to grow out its all-important artificial intelligence infrastructure, but you’d be wrong. Alphabet raised its capex guidance from $185 billion to $200 billion, and the stock promptly dropped 6%, taking several other major tech stocks with it, as investors are getting spooked by the amount of money being poured into AI right now.
It’s against this backdrop that fellow Magnificent Seven member Meta Platforms (META +0.18%) prepares to report its quarterly earnings after the closing bell on July 29. Meta, like Alphabet, has been spending heavily on data centers. But unlike Alphabet, it doesn’t have a cloud computing division of its own to sell AI computing capacity as a revenue stream.
Is that about to change? We may get some answers when Meta steps up to the earnings podium.
Image source: Meta Platforms.
Meta Platforms is easily one of the best-known companies in the world -- after all, it’s not every company whose origins are dramatized on the silver screen, but Meta (then known as Facebook) got that treatment via 2010’s The Social Network, with Hollywood stars Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Justin Timberlake in leading roles. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is ranked on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index as the sixth-wealthiest person in the world, with a net worth of $212 billion.
Today, the company operates a series of popular social media sites, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Threads. The family of apps, as the company calls them, are used by 3.56 billion people per day, giving Meta Platforms enormous reach.
Meta Platforms has grown to a market cap of $1.5 trillion, but 2026 hasn’t been kind. Meta Platforms stock is down nearly 10% so far this year and is nearly 25% off its all-time high. That drop has the stock somewhat discounted, with a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 18.7, below its five-year P/E mean of 24.8.
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Meta appears to be shifting gearsMeta appears to be a company in transition as it goes into earnings. It has continued to monetize its social media platforms, using AI tools to improve user experience and make advertising more targeted and relevant.
It also appears to be backing off its commitment to the metaverse -- the alternate reality that Zuckerberg had hoped would evolve into a digital world where people would both work and socialize. Meta Platforms even changed its name from Facebook in 2021 to emphasize the company’s new direction, and Meta has spent $80 billion so far on the effort. But Meta began cutting spending for its Reality Labs division this year as it puts more money into AI.
Part of its new direction involves what Meta is calling personal superintelligence. Meta’s vision of personal superintelligence is powerful AI assistants that can understand context, daily habits, and the user’s surroundings to aid them in everyday and long-term tasks. The AI assistant would be active nearly continuously, accessible primarily through wearable hardware.
There are also media reports that indicate that Meta, which is projected to spend $135 billion on capital expenditures and AI infrastructure this year, is considering building a cloud business of its own. Bloomberg reported that the company is building a “Meta Compute” division that would allow it to sell excess cloud computing capacity. Zuckerberg has already publicly suggested that Meta could sell excess capacity, but the Bloomberg report was the first to indicate that the company is moving forward with the plan.
In addition, The New York Times has reported that Meta is in talks with Anthropic, the AI start-up behind Claude, to lease as much as $10 billion in computing capacity to Claude in the next two years.
What should investors be looking for from Meta’s earnings report?The first thing that most people look for from Meta is the “daily average people” number -- how many people are using Meta’s apps? And people will want to know if Meta’s advertising revenue is increasing or decreasing. If those numbers drop, it could spell trouble for the stock.
But in today’s AI-hyped environment, the biggest things to watch on July 29 are forward-looking. Alphabet raised its projected capex, and I am fully expecting Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta to do the same this week.
And I expect Zuckerberg to face a lot of questions about Meta’s potential cloud computing business, and how much revenue the company could make should it compete with neocloud companies or become a hyperscaler like Google or Amazon.
Is Meta a buy before earnings? Probably not, because I fully expect the stock to dip following the earnings report. But if you have a long-term horizon and believe in Meta’s vision, August could be an appealing time to start adding shares.
Meta se při výsledcích hospodaření za 2. čtvrtletí zaměří na růst příjmů z reklamy a hlavně na to, zda znovu nezvýší celoroční kapitálové výdaje. Analytici čekají výnosy 60,21 miliardy USD a EPS 7,20 USD.
Meta Platform’s NASDAQ: META Q2 2026 financial results are quickly approaching, with the company set to release earnings on July 29 after the market close. Despite being down more than 8% year to date, the Magnificent Seven giant has recently seen its share price surge. The stock has rebounded around 10% from its 2026 low and now trades near $600.
This recovery is largely attributable to excitement around Meta’s reported cloud computing push and its Muse Spark 1.1 AI model. However, at this point, these potential growth drivers represent just that: potential. The company is reportedly in “very preliminary talks” to enter a $10 billion cloud computing deal with Anthropic, while it released Muse Spark 1.1 only around two weeks ago. In turn, these factors are unlikely to impact Meta’s results in Q2.
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The focus for Q2 will continue to be on Meta’s massive advertising business. These are the key headline figures and underlying metrics to watch, along with the commentary that could be important during the call.
Forecasts Point to Growth Deceleration; Spending Guidance Is KeyIn Q1, Meta put up impressive metrics, particularly when it comes to growth. Revenue rose by 33% year-over-year (YOY), the company’s fastest growth rate since 2021. Meta also blew past expectations on adjusted earnings per share (EPS), although an unusual tax benefit caused the majority of its $3.77 beat.
In Q2, analysts expect the company to generate sales of $60.21 billion, or a growth rate of just under 27% YOY. Notably, this sales expectation is on the high end of Meta’s $58 billion to $61 billion Q2 guidance. Adjusted EPS expectations sit at $7.20, or growth of only around 1% YOY. Analysts currently forecast sales of $63.2 billion for Q3, and markets will look for Meta to provide midpoint guidance above this figure.
The key underlying metrics to watch are Meta’s ad impressions delivered, growth and price paid per ad growth. These figures demonstrate Meta’s ability to show users more ads and charge advertisers more for each, ultimately increasing ad revenue. The former grew by 19% YOY in Q1, while the latter grew by 12% YOY. Both were Meta’s highest growth rates in over a year. Given that revenue growth is forecast to fall, it would be reasonable to see a slight to moderate drop in these figures.
Besides the headline figures and underlying data, investors will pay close attention to any updates in Meta’s full-year capital expenditure (CapEx) guidance. In Q1, the company raised its CapEx range to between $125 billion and $145 billion, an 8% increase at the midpoint. This was one of the primary reasons that Meta shares dropped over 8% after its Q1 report. Thus, another increase could lead to the same fate, but investors will also weigh this against growth and future opportunities.
Cloud and Muse Spark 1.1: Will Meta Provide Any Insight?While Meta's cloud segment and Muse Spark 1.1 may not impact its Q2 financial results, management could still provide important forward-looking commentary. For the cloud, it would first be notable for the company to explicitly confirm that it is moving into this business line. Given the significant amount of reporting around this topic in recent weeks, it's hard to imagine that Meta will not address it.
Overall MarketRank™99th Percentile
Analyst RatingModerate Buy
Upside/Downside40.4% Upside
Short Interest LevelHealthy
Dividend StrengthWeak
News Sentiment0.92 Insider TradingSelling Shares
Proj. Earnings Growth19.19%
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Going a step further would involve outlining in detail what its cloud approach would be. The different options may include simply selling raw access to computing power or doing so while also layering services on top. If Meta announced any actual customers, that would be huge news, and given the market’s past reaction to third-party reports alone, it could boost the stock. However, it may be too early to expect any such announcement.
Although Muse Spark 1.1 is still very new, Meta may choose to disclose some preliminary numbers. One possibility is that Meta provides early token consumption metrics, a commonly used proxy for AI model demand. A large figure would indicate strong interest. For reference, Alphabet NASDAQ: GOOGL said its first-party models were processing 22 billion tokens per minute in Q2. Nonetheless, it could still be too early for Meta to provide tangible figures on Muse Spark 1.1.
Any insight into demand for Meta’s recent subscription offerings or on reports that it may issue equity to raise AI investment capital would also be notable.
Meta’s Valuation Below 3-Year Average as Analysts Point to Strong UpsideOverall, Q2 provides Meta with an opportunity to show that its AI investments are paying off, primarily through growth in its advertising business. Making significant statements around its more forward-looking initiatives would help indicate that it can expand AI growth beyond advertising alone.
Just days ahead of its report, Meta trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio near 20.1x. This is moderately below its 23x average during the past three years. Meanwhile, Wall Street analysts continue to express bullishness. The MarketBeat consensus price target on Meta sits near $836, implying upside of over 30%.
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Meta opustila deset let starý závazek RE100, protože pro datová centra pro AI stále více spoléhá na zemní plyn. Firma přitom dál tvrdí, že bude vyrovnávat 100 % spotřeby elektřiny čistou energií.
Meta's logo at the company's offices in Menlo Park, California, U.S. (Photo: Justin Sullivan)
Getty Images
Technology giant Meta - the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp - has exited from a clean energy pact it had been a signatory to for over a decade, following a natural gas-powered push for its hyperscale data centers.
The company’s exit from the RE100 - a corporate renewable energy initiative - was revealed late last week by Recharge News. The initiative was floated by non-profit outfit The Climate Group founded by former U.K. prime minister Tony Blair.
Despite Meta’s exit, its other big tech rivals Apple, Google and Microsoft remain among the initiative’s 400-plus signatories. Another rival Amazon is not RE100 member. While confirming the "amicable" move, a Meta spokesperson declined further comment.
Renewables Can’t Keep PaceThe company needs reliable power sources for data centers at the heart of its artificial intelligence development and expansion plans.
While Meta’s renewable energy partnerships for wind and solar energy continue, it is also turning to natural gas-fired power sources in the U.S. as renewables simply cannot keep pace with its near-term demand projections.
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ForbesU.S. Banking On ‘Co-Innovation’ For Its Trillion Dollar Energy BuildBy Gaurav SharmaForbesU.S. Market Expected To Lead Multibillion Dollar Investments In LNGBy Gaurav SharmaForbesBig Oil Is Pairing Up With Big Tech For An Opportunity Worth BillionsBy Gaurav SharmaRecent overtures include Meta’s backing of ten such power plants in Louisiana capable of generating 7.5 gigawatts of electricity, following on from a 200 megawatt facility in Ohio that it backed in June 2025.
And the tech giant is not alone in turning to natural gas. Both Google and Microsoft have also invested in power sourced from fossil fuels. However, Meta’s moves dwarf its rivals in wattage terms.
As AI development morphs into a multibillion dollar industry, deployments accelerate, and the hyperscale data centers needed for the activity continue to grow exponentially, the tension between 'Big Tech’ headline growth and clean energy commitments continues to grow too.
End Of Decade ScenariosMany tech firms have inked long-term power purchase agreements with utilities and suppliers. These contracts are underpinned by renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.
But with power demand for data centers tipped to grow between 10% and 15% per year between now and 2030, if not more, as noted by S&P Global Commodity Insights, additional power sourced from natural gas-fired plants is increasingly coming into view both within the U.S. and elsewhere.
Meta’s predicament and response offer a true case in point. In the company’s 2025 sustainability report, Meta said it will continue matching 100% of its annual electricity use with clean and renewable energy.
Till date, Meta-supported wind and solar projects total up to nearly 30GW in the U.S. and global markets it operates in. Yet, with the AI sphere witnessing a bit of a super-cycle of sorts, and all of us living in a world where a a single ChatGPT query requires 2.9Wh of electricity, compared with 0.3Wh for a routine Google search (nearly ten times as much) - Meta and its competitors are reactively doing what they need to as energy hungry businesses.
And its not just natural gas, even coal could be a beneficiary, according to the International Energy Agency. The Paris, France-based think-tank recently forecast that demand from data centres remains a significant near-term driver of growth for natural gas-fired and coal-fired generation, through both higher utilization of existing assets and new power plants.
Natural gas and coal together are expected to meet over 40% of the additional electricity demand from data centres until 2030, it added. In such a scenario that is appearing highly likely, many clean energy pacts and pledges may well be broken by major tech brands out of necessity.
Meta rozšiřuje AI infrastrukturu a zároveň buduje vlastní cloud, což z ní může udělat konkurenta CoreWeave a Nebius. Firma už má v CoreWeave závazky za 35 miliard USD a s Nebius má smlouvu až na 27 miliard USD.
Something interesting is happening with Meta Platforms (META -1.80%) and two companies with which it has relationships -- CoreWeave (CRWV -11.58%) and Nebius Group (NBIS -15.02%).
On the one hand, Meta recently signed a $21 billion expanded deal for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, giving Meta increased capacity to develop AI programs. Factoring in a previous $14 billion deal, Meta now has $35 billion in commitments to CoreWeave.
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And similar things are happening with Nebius. Meta signed a long-term deal for AI infrastructure with the neocloud provider in March, valued at up to $27 billion over five years.
But now Meta seems to be shifting gears -- Bloomberg reports that it is now building a cloud business of its own to sell excess AI computing capacity. The report comes after CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicated Meta might consider selling overbuilt computing capacity to other companies at a premium.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
And The New York Times reports that Meta is currently in talks with Anthropic, the start-up behind the Claude large language model, to lease as much as $10 billion in computing power to Anthropic over two years.
So is Meta Platforms a valued customer or a potential competitor to CoreWeave and Nebius? That's the question that should be keeping investors up at night.
While Meta Platforms is a prominent name in the stock market -- the operator of Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms -- CoreWeave and Nebius may not be. Both companies are considered "neocloud" companies, which means they build high-performance data centers powered by Nvidia graphics processing units and then rent the computing power to customers who build, train, and operate AI-powered programs.
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CoreWeave is the bigger of the two, operating 43 data centers at the end of March with 850 megawatts of active power and 3.1 gigawatts of contracted power. CoreWeave reported $2.07 billion in revenue in the first quarter, up from $982 million a year ago, with a net loss of $740 million.
Nebius is smaller, with 11 data centers, and only five of them are currently operational. But the company reports contracted capacity exceeding 3.5 GW, and its revenue increased from $50.9 million in the first quarter of 2025 to $399 million in Q1 2026. It posted a net loss for the quarter of $100.3 million.
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Meta's shifting strategy Meta Platforms and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, will certainly face a lot of questions about Meta's strategy when it reports quarterly earnings on July 29. But the company has shown a willingness to take big risks.
Remember, this is the company that in 2021 changed its name from Facebook to Meta Platforms to emphasize its shift to building out the metaverse -- a virtual reality where people would presumably work, have meetings, and socialize. But that bet failed, and after investing $80 billion, Meta has started laying off some employees in its Reality Labs division.
Whether it's positioning itself to compete with CoreWeave and Nebius or considering taking on big cloud computing companies such as Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon, Meta is determined to be a player in AI. As it shifts its attention away from the metaverse, Meta will have plenty of resources and willingness to spend aggressively.
Akcie Meta před výsledky za 2. čtvrtletí za týden klesly o 7,87 % a od začátku roku o 9,68 % na 595,19 USD. Tržby v 1. čtvrtletí vzrostly o 33,08 % na 56,31 miliardy USD.
Meta (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) heads into its July 29 earnings report with its stock falling while the underlying business continues to accelerate. Shares have declined 7.87% over the past week and 9.68% year to date to $595.19.
With Meta trading at just 18x forward earnings, the recent pullback could offer an attractive entry point ahead of Q2 earnings.
Meta Trades at 18x Earnings Despite 33% Revenue Growth Meta trades at an 18x forward P/E with an 82% gross margin, a 41.44% operating margin, and a 20.69% ROIC. Q1 revenue climbed 33.08% to $56.31 billion, ad impressions increased 19%, and average price per ad climbed 12%. Meanwhile, full-year 2025 free cash flow came in at $43.59 billion, funding $26.25 billion in buybacks alongside a $0.53 quarterly dividend.
Wall Street’s consensus price target sits at $826.01, implying 38.8% upside from the stock’s current price of $595.19. Right now, analysts assigned Meta 57 buy ratings, 6 holds, and zero sell ratings. Paying under 20x earnings for a business generating 20%-plus returns on invested capital feels attractive on a relative-value basis.
Meta Has Beaten Earnings 6 Quarters in a Row Meta has beaten EPS estimates in six consecutive quarters, with the last miss dating all the way back to Q3 of 2022. Polymarket traders assign an 87.1% probability of another beat on July 29, and the full-chain put/call ratio sits at 0.43, with the July 31 expiry at just 0.30. Institutional positioning is decisively long into the release.
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Meta didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
Meta Beats Alphabet on Growth Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) trades at a more expensive 25x forward P/E (vs Meta’s 18x), but Alphabet’s most recent quarterly revenue growth was 24% versus Meta’s 33%. There’s of course more to consider when comparing the two advertising giants, but Meta stock is cheaper on an earnings basis and is delivering higher top-line growth.
Can Meta Justify Up to $145 Billion in AI Spending? The bear case is capex. Meta raised FY2026 capital spending guidance to $125 to $145 billion, sparking execution concerns. However, Meta’s Q1 operating cash flow of $32.23 billion, interest coverage ratio of 71.48x, and cash and securities of $81.2 billion give the business a cushion against the capex spend.
CFO Susan Li confirmed the company retains the flexibility to “bring it online more slowly or reduce our spending in future years” if returns lag. If Q2 results show that AI investments are strengthening ad performance without eroding margins, the recent pullback could prove to be a compelling buying opportunity.
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Meta didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
Meta zavádí v některých trzích nové funkce, díky nimž Meta AI zvládne vybrané úkoly samostatně. Novinka běží na modelu Muse Spark 1.1 a časem se rozšíří i na WhatsApp.
A 3D-printed Meta logo and word "AI" are seen in this illustration taken July 20, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
July 24 (Reuters) - Meta (META.O), opens new tab is rolling out new features for its Meta AI service in select markets, allowing the chatbot to complete certain tasks autonomously, the company said on Friday.
The updated Meta AI, powered by the company's new Muse Spark 1.1 model, is designed to understand user context and execute tasks without constant prompting.
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Meta said new upgrades to its AI will help deliver daily briefings by summarizing calendar events and can be set up for recurring tasks such as weekly meal plans or trend updates.
The company is initially releasing these capabilities in select markets via the Meta AI app and meta.ai, with plans to expand to more regions and platforms including WhatsApp.
The Facebook parent said users retain control over how they interact with the AI and incognito chats remain available for private conversations.
"This is our next step toward personal superintelligence: an AI that knows your context, is there for you whenever you need it," Meta said in a blog post.
Separately, the company on Friday launched a new app called "Seller" to offer dedicated selling tools to merchants using the company's Facebook Marketplace platform.
Meta is scheduled to report second-quarter results after market close on July 29.
Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Analytici čekají, že Meta Platforms vykáže zisk na akcii 7,13 USD a tržby 60,17 miliardy USD, což znamená meziroční růst tržeb o 26,6 %. EPS má být meziročně o 0,1 % nižší.
Analysts on Wall Street project that Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) will announce quarterly earnings of $7.13 per share in its forthcoming report, representing a decline of 0.1% year over year. Revenues are projected to reach $60.17 billion, increasing 26.6% from the same quarter last year.
Over the past 30 days, the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been adjusted upward by 0.6% to its current level. This demonstrates the covering analysts' collective reassessment of their initial projections during this period.
Before a company reveals its earnings, it is vital to take into account any changes in earnings projections. These revisions play a pivotal role in predicting the possible reactions of investors toward the stock. Multiple empirical studies have consistently shown a strong association between trends in earnings estimates and the short-term price movements of a stock.
While investors usually depend on consensus earnings and revenue estimates to assess the business performance for the quarter, delving into analysts' forecasts for certain key metrics often provides a more comprehensive understanding.
With that in mind, let's delve into the average projections of some Meta Platforms metrics that are commonly tracked and projected by analysts on Wall Street.
It is projected by analysts that the 'Revenue- Family of Apps (FoA)' will reach $59.60 billion. The estimate indicates a year-over-year change of +26.4%.
Analysts' assessment points toward 'Revenue- Advertising' reaching $59.01 billion. The estimate indicates a change of +26.7% from the prior-year quarter.
Analysts predict that the 'Revenue- Other' will reach $860.24 million. The estimate points to a change of +47.6% from the year-ago quarter.
The collective assessment of analysts points to an estimated 'Revenue- Reality Labs' of $441.53 million. The estimate suggests a change of +19.3% year over year.
The average prediction of analysts places 'Advertising Revenue- US & Canada' at $26.03 billion. The estimate indicates a year-over-year change of +29.9%.
The consensus among analysts is that 'Advertising Revenue- Europe' will reach $14.47 billion. The estimate points to a change of +27.4% from the year-ago quarter.
Analysts forecast 'Geographical Revenue by User- Asia-Pacific' to reach $11.68 billion. The estimate suggests a change of +24.8% year over year.
The consensus estimate for 'Advertising Revenue- Rest of the World' stands at $8.16 billion. The estimate indicates a change of +36% from the prior-year quarter.
Analysts expect 'Geographical Revenue by User- US & Canada' to come in at $25.57 billion. The estimate points to a change of +25.5% from the year-ago quarter.
According to the collective judgment of analysts, 'Geographical Revenue by User- Rest of World' should come in at $8.55 billion. The estimate indicates a change of +36.8% from the prior-year quarter.
The combined assessment of analysts suggests that 'Family daily active people (DAP)' will likely reach $3.61 billion. The estimate is in contrast to the year-ago figure of $3.48 billion.
Based on the collective assessment of analysts, 'Headcount' should arrive at 75,407 . Compared to the current estimate, the company reported 75,945 in the same quarter of the previous year.
View all Key Company Metrics for Meta Platforms here>>>
Over the past month, shares of Meta Platforms have returned +11.7% versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's +0.6% change. Currently, META carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), suggesting that its performance may align with the overall market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>> .
Meta spustila novou aplikaci Seller pro obchodníky na Facebook Marketplace. Nabízí AI nástroje pro tvorbu nabídek, sjednocenou schránku, správu skladových zásob i přehled výkonu.
The logo of Meta at the Meta Lab in Los Angeles, California, U.S., May 20, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Cole/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
July 24 (Reuters) - Meta (META.O), opens new tab on Friday launched a new app called "Seller" to offer dedicated selling tools to merchants using the company's Facebook Marketplace platform for buying and selling items.
Increasing shopping activity on Facebook groups prompted the social media giant to launch Marketplace ten years ago, generating revenue from boosted listings.
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Meta is looking to strengthen its Marketplace offering to better compete with e-commerce platforms like eBay, while enhancing the shopping experience on the platform, which sees 430 million items listed each month globally.
The "Seller" app is designed to sync with existing Marketplace accounts, carrying over current listings, messages and sales history.
The app features AI-powered tools for creating listings, a unified inbox for buyer communications, inventory management capabilities and performance insights to help sellers optimize their strategies.
The company said "Seller" is now available on the App Store for U.S. users 18 and older, with a web version currently being tested for those who download the app.
Facebook is also launching "Facebook Verified", a free badge that signifies a real person is behind a profile, the company said.
The verification involves a selfie-based process, as the company looks to address concerns about authenticity and safety.
In May, Meta released an app called "Forum" for people who use Facebook Groups.
Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Freemont Management S.A. ve 1. čtvrtletí snížila podíl v Meta Platforms o 10,1 % a prodala 1 200 akcií. Po transakci držela 10 700 akcií v hodnotě 6,122 mil. USD.
Freemont Management S.A. trimmed its position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 10.1% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The firm owned 10,700 shares of the social networking company’s stock after selling 1,200 shares during the period. Freemont Management S.A.’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $6,122,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.
A number of other institutional investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the company. First National Bank Sioux Falls boosted its stake in Meta Platforms by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. First National Bank Sioux Falls now owns 2,001 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $1,321,000 after acquiring an additional 14 shares in the last quarter. Levin Capital Strategies L.P. grew its holdings in Meta Platforms by 1.4% in the fourth quarter. Levin Capital Strategies L.P. now owns 984 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $649,000 after purchasing an additional 14 shares during the period. Vista Capital Partners Inc. increased its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 1.3% during the second quarter. Vista Capital Partners Inc. now owns 1,075 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $794,000 after purchasing an additional 14 shares in the last quarter. Arcataur Capital Management LLC increased its stake in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.9% during the fourth quarter. Arcataur Capital Management LLC now owns 1,736 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $1,146,000 after purchasing an additional 15 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Acorn Creek Capital LLC lifted its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 0.7% during the fourth quarter. Acorn Creek Capital LLC now owns 2,118 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $1,398,000 after purchasing an additional 15 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.
Insiders Place Their Bets In other news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 9,195 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $607.84, for a total value of $5,589,088.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 13,186 shares in the company, valued at $8,014,978.24. The trade was a 41.08% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a legal filing with the SEC, which is available through this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, insider Curtis J. Mahoney sold 2,079 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, May 27th. The stock was sold at an average price of $609.92, for a total transaction of $1,268,023.68. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 1,118 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $681,890.56. This trade represents a 65.03% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Insiders sold a total of 37,948 shares of company stock worth $23,184,319 in the last 90 days. Corporate insiders own 13.53% of the company’s stock.
Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth A number of analysts have recently commented on the company. Bank of America dropped their price target on Meta Platforms from $885.00 to $820.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday, April 20th. Rosenblatt Securities reaffirmed a “buy” rating and set a $1,015.00 price objective on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, May 28th. BNP Paribas Exane began coverage on Meta Platforms in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. They set an “outperform” rating for the company. Citizens Jmp dropped their target price on Meta Platforms from $825.00 to $800.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a report on Friday, July 10th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company increased their target price on Meta Platforms from $767.00 to $835.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Tuesday. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have given a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $835.64.
Check Out Our Latest Research Report on Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms Stock Performance META stock opened at $606.10 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $1.53 trillion, a PE ratio of 22.03, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.04 and a beta of 1.25. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12-month low of $520.26 and a 12-month high of $796.25. The company has a current ratio of 2.35, a quick ratio of 2.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. The stock’s 50 day simple moving average is $604.90 and its 200 day simple moving average is $625.98.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The social networking company reported $10.44 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $6.67 by $3.77. The firm had revenue of $56.31 billion during the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $55.56 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 36.93% and a net margin of 32.84%.The company’s revenue was up 33.1% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the business earned $6.43 earnings per share. As a group, research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 30.07 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 15th were given a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 15th. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is 7.63%.
Meta Platforms News Summary Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: A Florida teen dropped a social-media addiction lawsuit against Meta before trial, reducing near-term legal pressure and removing a potential headline risk for the company. Reuters article Positive Sentiment: Wells Fargo reportedly raised its price target on Meta, reinforcing Wall Street’s bullish long-term view despite near-term volatility. Article Positive Sentiment: Jefferies said Meta’s AI glasses could become a meaningful long-term hardware growth opportunity, highlighting the company’s first-mover advantage in AI wearables. Article Positive Sentiment: Analysts and commentators continue to point to strong demand for Meta’s data-center and AI infrastructure buildout, with some seeing that spending as evidence of aggressive positioning in the AI race. Article Neutral Sentiment: Meta launched a new AI-optimism ad campaign and Zuckerberg has been publicly pushing back against “AI doomerism,” but the messaging also highlights ongoing backlash over AI risks and product criticism. Article Neutral Sentiment: Meta’s stock is in focus ahead of earnings, with some technical traders noting it is trading below several key moving averages and could remain volatile if results or guidance disappoint. Article Negative Sentiment: Meta dropped out of a major clean-energy pact while its natural-gas power buildout accelerates, which could fuel criticism from ESG-focused investors and increase scrutiny of its AI infrastructure strategy. Article Negative Sentiment: Several reports suggest investors are worried about Meta’s heavy AI capex, with comparisons to other megacap tech names showing the market is increasingly focused on whether spending will pay off. Article About Meta Platforms (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
Featured Stories Five stocks we like better than Meta Platforms Premium Retail’s Stress Test Is Separating Winners From Losers D-Wave Quantum or a Quantum ETF: Which Is the Better Bet? GE Vernova Just Sent a Mixed AI Signal to Investors Alphabet Crushed Earnings, But One Number Spooked the Market Want to see what other hedge funds are holding META? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report).
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Over the past year, Meta has funded the construction of at least a dozen natural gas power plants, including one project that alone will burn enough natural gas to generate as much electricity as the entire state of South Dakota uses.
Now Meta is no longer part of the RE100, a corporate renewable energy initiative, after a decade of membership, the company confirmed to TechCrunch today. The breakup was mutual, according to a Meta spokesperson.
The exit caps months of Meta expanding its bet on fossil fuels to power its AI data centers and begs the obvious question: What does “clean energy” actually mean to a company that keeps building gas plants while still calling itself renewable?
RE100 is a project of the Climate Group, a U.K.-headquartered nonprofit co-founded by former prime minister Tony Blair. The initiative provides policy and technical support to corporations seeking to transition to 100% renewable energy. Meta competitors Apple, Google, and Microsoft remain among the group’s 444 members. Recharge News was first to report Meta’s departure.
While Meta wouldn’t comment on the reasons behind the departure —and the Climate Group did not reply to TechCrunch’s inquiry — the nonprofit recently updated its guidance for companies, enforcing more rigorous reporting on progress toward renewable energy goals. Previously, Meta told RE100 that it would “run its entire operations on renewable electricity by 2020.”
Like many tech companies, Meta’s embrace of AI has pushed it to secure large amounts of power for its data centers, and while the company continues to procure renewable energy, it has embraced natural gas like few others.
Meta’s toe in the water was a 200-megawatt behind-the-meter gas power plant in Ohio, announced in June of last year, that will power one of its data centers.
Two months later, Meta said it would build three large natural gas power plants in Louisiana to supply electricity to its Hyperion data center. Then in April, the company announced that it would fund seven more natural gas power plants for the same project. Combined, the 10 power plants will generate 7.5 gigawatts, enough electricity to power South Dakota and then some.
Meta, through a spokesperson, told TechCrunch that it remained committed to matching its data center electricity usage “with 100% clean and renewable energy.”
That’s a lot to promise. While natural gas burns more cleanly than coal, it still produces significant amounts of pollution. A single 1-gigawatt data center running 24/7, powered exclusively by natural gas, will release 438 metric tons of nitrogen oxides, 149 metric tons of fine particulate matter, 61 metric tons of sulfur oxides, and 298 metric tons of carbon monoxide. Those pollutants contribute to a range of diseases, including asthma, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and dementia, among many others.
Meta can still claim to be 100% renewable by purchasing environmental attribute certificates. These allow companies to invest in a solar farm in Arizona, for example, while building a data center in Ohio. As long as the solar farm makes enough energy in one year to offset the data center’s use, Meta counts that as 100% renewable.
Most companies have tackled their renewable power goals using annual matching, but some, including Microsoft, are striving to match their electricity use on an hourly basis. This more stringent approach would bring power production more in line with how data centers use electricity. It also encourages companies to invest in projects that pair renewables with batteries, like Google did earlier this year in Minnesota, rather than polluting ones like Meta’s Hyperion power plants.
Meta isn’t alone in pursuing natural gas — both Google and Microsoft have recently invested in large fossil fuel projects — but it has placed the biggest bet. Withdrawal or removal from a voluntary industry group isn’t always big news, but the timing, amid Meta’s fossil-fuel buildout, makes the change hard to ignore.
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.
Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor.
De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.
You can contact or verify outreach from Tim by emailing [email protected].
Meta čeká výsledky za 2. čtvrtletí 29. července; analytici odhadují EPS 7,18 USD a tržby 60,22 miliardy USD. Akcie jsou pod tlakem a obchodují 2,76 % níže na 609,82 USD.
Meta Platforms stock is under selling pressure. Why are META shares declining? Earnings Preview & HistoryMeta is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings on July 29. Analysts estimate EPS of $7.18 along with revenue of $60.22 billion. For the prior quarter, Meta Platforms reported EPS of $7.31, beating the consensus estimate of $6.67. The company also posted revenue of $56.31 billion, exceeding the consensus estimate of $55.54 billion.
Meta Platforms has beaten EPS estimates in eight consecutive quarters. Over the last four quarters, the company has averaged an EPS surprise of 0.12% and a revenue surprise of 0.03%.
What To WatchInvestors will be watching Meta’s family-of-apps user trends for early signs that Europe’s youth-access restrictions are affecting engagement, since even small usage shifts can ripple into ad inventory and pricing. Advertising revenue growth relative to pricing and impressions is another key area to track, given the $60.22 billion revenue target hinges on strong ad demand alongside Reels and AI-driven discovery.
Updates on AI monetization, including Advantage+ performance and returns on AI infrastructure spending, will also be closely followed as the market focuses on the gap between AI investment and results.
A Death Cross Still Casts a Shadow Over Meta StockMeta is trading 0.8% below its 20-day SMA ($615.93) and 0.9% below its 100-day SMA ($616.32), while holding 0.8% above its 50-day SMA ($606.09). That "tug-of-war" positioning often produces choppy trade, and it helps explain why the stock can feel heavy on down-futures mornings even if the longer trend isn’t breaking.
RSI is the cleaner momentum read right now: at 51.71, it’s basically neutral, which fits a stock that’s consolidating rather than trending hard. In plain terms, RSI helps gauge whether buying or selling has gotten stretched; near-50 readings usually mean neither side has clear control.
The bigger-picture trend is still mixed: the 20-day SMA is above the 50-day SMA (a near-term bullish tilt), but the death cross from December 2025 (50-day SMA below the 200-day SMA) keeps the longer-term trend filter cautious. Zooming out, the stock remains 4.4% below its 200-day SMA ($639.20), and that overhead area can act like "gravity" on rebounds.
From a levels standpoint, traders will likely keep an eye on nearby pivots:
Key Resistance: $643.00 — a nearby round-number zone that also sits close to the 200-day moving-average area, where rebounds can stall Key Support: $577.00 — a nearby prior demand zone that sits well above the $520.26 52-week low, but would matter if selling pressure builds Analyst Consensus & Recent ActionsThe stock carries a Buy rating with an average price forecast of $820.81. Recent analyst moves include:
Raymond James: Strong Buy (Raises Target to $850.00) (July 21) Wells Fargo: Overweight (Raises Target to $835.00) (July 21) Rothschild & Co: Buy (Raises Target to $1000.00) (July 21) Meta Shares SlipMETA Price Action: At the time of publication, Meta shares are trading 2.76% lower at $609.82, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
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This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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Meta v 1. čtvrtletí 2026 zvýšila kapitálové výdaje na 18,997 mld. USD a celoroční výhled na 125 až 145 mld. USD. Tržby přesto vzrostly o 33,08 % na 56,311 mld. USD a volný peněžní tok zůstal kladný na 12,386 mld. USD.
I keep building a position in Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction), and every quarter the case for adding more gets stronger, not weaker. The bear thesis I heard for eighteen months, that AI capital spending would eat the margins alive, has now been tested against real numbers. The numbers won.
The Capex Panic Was Priced in Fear Q1 2026 was the quarter the argument should have broken. Meta spent $18.997 billion on capex, up 46.8% year over year, and raised full-year guidance to $125 to $145 billion. And yet revenue grew 33.08% to $56.311 billion, operating income climbed 30.29%, and free cash flow stayed positive at $12.386 billion. Operating margin held at 41%. Those are the numbers of a company compounding through its investment cycle.
The reason the pie does not shrink is the whole game. Meta has kept everyday operating costs flat by cutting non-core corporate layers, freezing traditional infrastructure, and executing deep workforce reductions, funneling the freed capital into GPUs and data centers. Those hardware purchases are booked as capex, so the cash goes out immediately but hits the income statement gradually as depreciation over a 4-to-5-year useful life. By the time those charges arrive, AI-driven ad targeting has already delivered double-digit revenue growth that outpaces the creeping overhead. That is how you keep near-40% margins while spending like a utility.
Three Reasons the Compounding Case Holds First, monetization is accelerating alongside the spend. Ad impressions rose 19% year over year in Q1 2026 and average price per ad rose 12%. Family daily active people reached 3.56 billion. The business keeps finding more inventory and charging more for it.
Second, the returns on capital are what you would expect from a fortress. ROIC sits at 20.69%, ROE at 30.24%, and net profit margin at 30.08%. Debt to equity is 0.39. Interest coverage is 71x. There is no financial fragility here.
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Third, management is telling on themselves in a good way. Mark Zuckerberg said on the Q1 call, “Every sign that we are seeing in our own work and across the industry gives us confidence in this investment,” and pointed to more than one gigawatt of custom silicon developed with Broadcom plus AMD chips complementing the new NVIDIA systems. That is disciplined efficiency work.
Why Not Just Buy the Index? The reflexive alternative for most readers is an index proxy like the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ). It is a fine holding. It is also a way to own a much smaller slice of exactly this story. After Meta’s Q1 2025 report, the stock’s 30-day return of 16.54% ran well ahead of QQQ’s 9.47%. Concentration in the specific compounder that owns Instagram, WhatsApp, and the entire ad stack pays for itself when the thesis works.
The Risk I Actually Watch Reality Labs lost $4.03 billion in Q1 2026 on $402 million of revenue. That segment is the scar on the story, and there are youth-related litigation trials scheduled in 2026 that may result in material losses. What keeps me buying anyway is that Family of Apps generated $55.909 billion in revenue in the same quarter. The core business can carry the moonshot for a long time.
Analysts covering the stock skew heavily bullish, with 49 Buy ratings, 8 Strong Buy, 6 Hold, and no Sell calls, against a consensus target of $822.69 versus a current $646.01. The thesis remains intact.
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A day after Snap tentatively settled with the plaintiff in a social media addiction lawsuit, leaving Meta as the only remaining defendant, the case has been dropped. In a statement, Meta said the plaintiff chose to drop his case against Meta without receiving any payment.
TikTok and Google’s YouTube had previously reached settlement agreements with the plaintiff. (Snap on Tuesday confirmed a tentative agreement had been reached.)
The bellwether jury trial had been set to begin next week in the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles.
The plaintiff, a Florida teenager known by the initials “R.K.C.,” had sued the social media companies for creating addictive platforms. It was one of thousands of similar lawsuits from teens, schools, and state attorneys general that had accused the big tech companies of knowingly creating addictive platforms.
The precedent that would have been set by this lawsuit and others could have impacted how the companies build their apps, known for features that keep people engaged, like the infinite scroll and their continual buzz of notifications.
The plaintiff’s decision to drop the case follows Meta’s loss in a New Mexico case earlier this year, which marked its first courtroom defeat over social media harms. Meta was ordered to pay $375 million in penalties after the company was found to have misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and endangered children.
In March, a Los Angeles jury also handed both Meta and Google another defeat, awarding the defendant in that case some $6 million in damages.
Meta had been prepared to argue that the plaintiff in this case had allegedly only used Facebook and Instagram accounts for minutes per day on average, and was planning to claim that most of his accounts had been created after hiring a lawyer.
In its statement, Meta said that, “this outcome makes clear that we will not back away from defending ourselves against baseless lawsuits.”
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Meta jedná o dvouleté cloudové smlouvě s Anthropic za 10 miliard USD, která by jí otevřela nový zdroj tržeb z AI infrastruktury. Dohoda ale zatím není uzavřená.
Investors have long known that Meta Platforms (META -2.76%) planned to continue growing through AI. Most investors assumed that it would leverage its massive data collection to train AI models in ways that its competitors could not precisely replicate.
Hence, even though Meta has been a hyperscaler for years, it may have come as a surprise to some to hear that Mark Zuckerberg was also contemplating a move into leasing cloud computing capacity. Knowing that, investors will likely be watching Meta and its CEO closely when the company reports its Q2 earnings on July 29.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
The move into the neocloud So far, investors don't seem enthusiastic about Meta's expensive AI ambitions. The company has pledged to spend between $125 billion and $145 billion on capital expenditures in 2026 alone, primarily to develop its AI. That comes after it spent almost $70 billion on capex in 2025.
Additionally, the social media stock trades at a P/E ratio of 23, the lowest among the "Magnificent Seven" stocks. Its revenue grew by 33% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, a level of growth that supports the investment thesis for Meta, particularly given its low multiple and its success in digital advertising.
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Nonetheless, uncertainty about where it could derive significant long-term growth from may partially explain its low P/E ratio.
Today, an average of 3.56 billion people, about 43% of the world's population, already log into a Meta-owned site daily. That past success has left it with relatively few potential new users to pursue.
For now, the start of its shift to the neocloud appears to hinge on a proposed two-year, $10 billion deal with Anthropic, and some believe an announcement during its July 29 earnings call that such a deal has been sealed will send the stock soaring. That deal would allow Meta to put some of its AI infrastructure to use in a way that directly translates into revenue.
Admittedly, that deal is not final and could still fall through. However, there is plenty of demand for cloud infrastructure across the market. Though it has been viewed as one of the four major hyperscalers throughout the AI build-out, analysts including Mark Mahaney of Evercore see what Meta is likely to offer to its clients as more akin to the specialized cloud offerings of the smaller neocloud providers.
That looks like a promising model: Mordor Intelligence estimates a compound annual growth rate of 46% for the neocloud through 2031.
However, if such an announcement occurs, it still may not ease investor concerns. Nearly 98% of Meta's revenue came from digital advertising in Q1, and Zuckerberg has yet to prove that he can turn his company into a cloud infrastructure provider on par with Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure. Until investors feel more confident about Meta's pivot in this direction, many may remain skeptical.
Should investors buy Meta Platforms stock before earnings? The good news for investors is that Meta Platforms stock is likely a buy before July 29, when Zuckerberg will probably offer more clarity on its AI ambitions.
Indeed, Meta Platforms stock could take a hit if the Anthropic deal falls through. Additionally, its massive capex spending on new AI data centers is concerning to many investors, given that almost all of the company's revenue still comes from digital ads.
Fortunately, that digital ad business is likely not going anywhere, and the company's AI efforts have enhanced its effectiveness. Considering its rapid revenue increases and the 23 P/E ratio, the company's growth should continue even if Meta's AI plans fail to meet investor expectations.
Jefferies vidí v AI brýlích od Meta dlouhodobou růstovou příležitost a odhaduje hardwarový byznys na 14 až 18 miliard USD v příštích letech. Firma má podle analytiků náskok, protože jako jediná dodává AI brýle ve velkém.
Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB)’s AI-enabled glasses could represent a new growth opportunity for the company as the wearables move toward broader consumer adoption, according to Jefferies analysts who tested multiple models and highlighted the product’s potential as a future computing interface.
The analysts wrote that Meta’s AI glasses impressed across areas including camera quality, setup experience and their traditional glasses design, noting that the company currently has a first-mover advantage as the only major player shipping AI glasses at scale. Jefferies estimated that the category could create a $14 billion to $18 billion hardware revenue opportunity over the next several years, assuming adoption levels similar to the Apple Watch and an average selling price of about $400.
Meta’s AI glasses are screen-free, voice-controlled wearables that combine cameras, open-ear audio and integration with the Meta AI application. Jefferies tested three models, including the Ray-Ban Meta Gen2 priced at $379, the Oakley Meta priced at $499 and the Ray-Ban Display with Neural Band priced at $799, and wrote that the devices integrated naturally into daily activities including sports, communication and productivity.
The analysts’ base-case scenario estimates the hardware opportunity could translate into roughly 35 million to 45 million units sold, with additional potential upside from AI subscriptions, advertising and commerce-related monetization. Jefferies highlighted Meta AI’s growing user base, noting that monthly active users have reached approximately 1 billion and daily glasses users are increasing year over year.
Jefferies wrote that the longer-term opportunity could extend beyond hardware sales if AI assistants shift toward “agentic” experiences where users delegate tasks rather than simply search for information. In that scenario, the analysts noted that AI glasses could capture user intent at the point of discovery and potentially position Meta closer to future commerce transactions.
The analysts highlighted several strengths of the products, including camera performance, easy photo capture and synchronization through the Meta AI app. They also pointed to the open-ear audio experience as a key advantage, allowing users to listen to music, handle calls and receive notifications while maintaining awareness of their surroundings. Spotify integration, the glasses’ comfortable design and their ability to combine functions typically handled by a phone camera, earbuds and action camera were also cited as benefits.
However, Jefferies noted that the technology remains in development. The analysts pointed to areas for improvement including video quality, speaker volume, voice activation reliability, battery life and the adjustment required for users to incorporate the glasses into everyday routines. They also noted that launches in some regions, including Europe, have faced delays related to supply constraints and regulatory considerations around AI, privacy and always-on cameras.
Jefferies maintained a positive view on Meta’s AI glasses opportunity, writing that the company’s early position in the category could provide a long-term growth opportunity that is not yet reflected in current expectations.
Shares of Meta traded hands at $630 on Wednesday, down about 5% so far this year.
Meta Platforms má za čtvrtletí vykázat zisk 7,13 USD na akcii, meziročně o 0,1 % méně, při tržbách 60,17 miliardy USD, což představuje meziroční růst o 26,6 %.
Wall Street expects a year-over-year decline in earnings on higher revenues when Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) reports results for the quarter ended June 2026. While this widely-known consensus outlook is important in gauging the company's earnings picture, a powerful factor that could impact its near-term stock price is how the actual results compare to these estimates.
The earnings report, which is expected to be released on July 29, might help the stock move higher if these key numbers are better than expectations. On the other hand, if they miss, the stock may move lower.
While management's discussion of business conditions on the earnings call will mostly determine the sustainability of the immediate price change and future earnings expectations, it's worth having a handicapping insight into the odds of a positive EPS surprise.
Zacks Consensus EstimateThis social media company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $7.13 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -0.1%.
Revenues are expected to be $60.17 billion, up 26.6% from the year-ago quarter.
Estimate Revisions TrendThe consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has been revised 0.49% higher over the last 30 days to the current level. This is essentially a reflection of how the covering analysts have collectively reassessed their initial estimates over this period.
Investors should keep in mind that the direction of estimate revisions by each of the covering analysts may not always get reflected in the aggregate change.
Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise
Earnings WhisperEstimate revisions ahead of a company's earnings release offer clues to the business conditions for the period whose results are coming out. This insight is at the core of our proprietary surprise prediction model -- the Zacks Earnings ESP (Expected Surprise Prediction).
The Zacks Earnings ESP compares the Most Accurate Estimate to the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter; the Most Accurate Estimate is a more recent version of the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate. The idea here is that analysts revising their estimates right before an earnings release have the latest information, which could potentially be more accurate than what they and others contributing to the consensus had predicted earlier.
Thus, a positive or negative Earnings ESP reading theoretically indicates the likely deviation of the actual earnings from the consensus estimate. However, the model's predictive power is significant for positive ESP readings only.
A positive Earnings ESP is a strong predictor of an earnings beat, particularly when combined with a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold). Our research shows that stocks with this combination produce a positive surprise nearly 70% of the time, and a solid Zacks Rank actually increases the predictive power of Earnings ESP.
Please note that a negative Earnings ESP reading is not indicative of an earnings miss. Our research shows that it is difficult to predict an earnings beat with any degree of confidence for stocks with negative Earnings ESP readings and/or Zacks Rank of 4 (Sell) or 5 (Strong Sell).
How Have the Numbers Shaped Up for Meta Platforms?For Meta Platforms, the Most Accurate Estimate is lower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate, suggesting that analysts have recently become bearish on the company's earnings prospects. This has resulted in an Earnings ESP of -2.19%.
On the other hand, the stock currently carries a Zacks Rank of #3.
So, this combination makes it difficult to conclusively predict that Meta Platforms will beat the consensus EPS estimate.
Does Earnings Surprise History Hold Any Clue?While calculating estimates for a company's future earnings, analysts often consider to what extent it has been able to match past consensus estimates. So, it's worth taking a look at the surprise history for gauging its influence on the upcoming number.
For the last reported quarter, it was expected that Meta Platforms would post earnings of $6.71 per share when it actually produced earnings of $7.31, delivering a surprise of +8.94%.
Over the last four quarters, the company has beaten consensus EPS estimates four times.
Bottom LineAn earnings beat or miss may not be the sole basis for a stock moving higher or lower. Many stocks end up losing ground despite an earnings beat due to other factors that disappoint investors. Similarly, unforeseen catalysts help a number of stocks gain despite an earnings miss.
That said, betting on stocks that are expected to beat earnings expectations does increase the odds of success. This is why it's worth checking a company's Earnings ESP and Zacks Rank ahead of its quarterly release. Make sure to utilize our Earnings ESP Filter to uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they've reported.
Meta Platforms doesn't appear a compelling earnings-beat candidate. However, investors should pay attention to other factors too for betting on this stock or staying away from it ahead of its earnings release.
Stay on top of upcoming earnings announcements with the Zacks Earnings Calendar.
Meta Platforms má podle Nikkei Asia dalších 420 miliard USD mimoúčetního dluhu mimo rozvahu, který od roku 2022 výrazně vzrostl. Firma dál masivně investuje do AI infrastruktury.
Artificial intelligence provides some great opportunities for many companies today. But it’s also a very expensive proposition that’s weighing down some of the biggest companies in the stock market. Meta Platforms (META -2.31%) is down 3% so far this year on fears that the company is taking on too much debt as it invests in AI infrastructure.
Meta’s balance sheet shows that the company has about $58.7 billion in long-term debt. But a new report indicates that the company’s debt load is much greater. Nikkei Asia reports that Meta Platforms has another $420 billion in off-balance-sheet debt. That number has grown substantially since 2022, the outlet reported.
Should investors be concerned about Meta Platforms’ stock?
Image source: The Motley Fool.
What is off-balance-sheet debt?Publicly traded companies are required to report the amount of debt they are incurring. But under accounting rules, equipment such as graphics processing units and servers that are under long-term contracts but not yet delivered is treated as an off-balance-sheet item. Meta and other companies disclose future debt in annotations on their financial statements.
When Meta’s GPUs are delivered and the data centers become operational, this hidden debt will begin to appear on the quarterly balance sheet.
Meta is one of five companies -- the others being Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle -- analyzed in the Nikkei Asia report. The five companies, all of which are making significant investments in AI infrastructure, have a collective $1.65 trillion in debt that is not reflected on the companies' balance sheets.
Meta is accelerating its spending on AIMeta Platforms shows no appetite to slow its spending. The company spent $72 billion on capital expenditures in 2025 -- most of it related to AI -- and said in its first-quarter report that it would spend between $125 billion and $145 billion this year.
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Its $50 billion Hyperion data center planned for Louisiana is getting a lot of attention. The center was first announced as a $27 billion project funded by Meta’s joint venture with Blue Owl Capital. But in June, Meta announced it was expanding the project from a 2-gigawatt center to 5 gigawatts of capacity as it seeks to build out enough AI infrastructure to meet demand.
Blue Owl and its partners are funding the construction, allowing the project to remain off Meta’s balance sheet. Blue Owl will own 80% of Hyperion, with Meta owning the remaining 20%.
Should investors be concerned about Meta’s debt?On the one hand, $420 billion is a big number. There are only 30 companies in the world with an entire valuation of more than $420 billion, so when Meta takes on that much debt that hasn’t even made it to its balance sheet yet, it can seem pretty scary.
Meta is making huge, long-term commitments based on the idea that AI demand will justify the infrastructure. It appears to be transitioning its business away from the so-called metaverse toward hyperscaler services. That means investors should be prepared for lower margins, perhaps as early as when the company reports second-quarter earnings after the market closes on July 29.
Evercore analyst Mark Mahaney recently told CNBC that he doubts that Meta will attempt to compete head-to-head with Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet -- the three largest hyperscalers by market share. Instead, he sees Meta attempting to challenge neocloud providers such as CoreWeave and Nebius Group in offering AI-specific computing products, including AI chips and systems.
Either way, I expect Meta to shed more light on the picture when it reports earnings next week.
Angeles Wealth Management LLC boosted its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 11.3% during the 1st quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the SEC. The firm owned 14,468 shares of the social networking company’s stock after buying an additional 1,470 shares during the quarter. Angeles Wealth Management LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $8,277,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period.
A number of other institutional investors and hedge funds also recently added to or reduced their stakes in META. RHL Group LLC acquired a new stake in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter valued at about $28,000. Strategic Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Niles Investment Management LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the fourth quarter valued at approximately $29,000. Bayban increased its holdings in shares of Meta Platforms by 100.0% in the first quarter. Bayban now owns 70 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $40,000 after purchasing an additional 35 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter worth approximately $42,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.
Insiders Place Their Bets In related news, COO Javier Olivan sold 3,348 shares of the stock in a transaction on Monday, July 6th. The shares were sold at an average price of $600.97, for a total value of $2,012,047.56. Following the transaction, the chief operating officer directly owned 9,498 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $5,708,013.06. This trade represents a 26.06% decrease in their position. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is accessible through the SEC website. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 7,847 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $607.83, for a total value of $4,769,642.01. Following the sale, the chief technology officer owned 414 shares in the company, valued at $251,641.62. This trade represents a 94.99% decrease in their position. Additional details regarding this sale are available in the official SEC disclosure. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Over the last ninety days, insiders sold 37,948 shares of company stock valued at $23,184,319. 13.53% of the stock is owned by company insiders.
Analysts Set New Price Targets Several equities research analysts recently issued reports on META shares. Rothschild & Co Redburn raised their price objective on shares of Meta Platforms from $900.00 to $1,000.00 and gave the stock a “buy” rating in a research report on Tuesday. BNP Paribas Exane assumed coverage on shares of Meta Platforms in a research note on Tuesday, June 2nd. They issued an “outperform” rating for the company. Citizens Jmp cut their price target on shares of Meta Platforms from $825.00 to $800.00 and set an “outperform” rating for the company in a report on Friday, July 10th. JPMorgan Chase & Co. reaffirmed a “neutral” rating and set a $725.00 price target (down from $825.00) on shares of Meta Platforms in a research report on Thursday, April 30th. Finally, Wedbush began coverage on Meta Platforms in a report on Thursday, July 16th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $671.00 price objective on the stock. Five equities research analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have assigned a Buy rating, eight have given a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $835.64.
View Our Latest Stock Analysis on Meta Platforms
Meta Platforms Price Performance Meta Platforms stock opened at $643.81 on Wednesday. The company has a quick ratio of 2.35, a current ratio of 2.35 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 52-week low of $520.26 and a 52-week high of $796.25. The firm has a market cap of $1.63 trillion, a PE ratio of 23.40, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.14 and a beta of 1.25. The company’s 50 day moving average is $604.93 and its two-hundred day moving average is $626.52.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings data on Wednesday, April 29th. The social networking company reported $10.44 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.67 by $3.77. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 36.93% and a net margin of 32.84%.The business had revenue of $56.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $55.56 billion. During the same period last year, the firm earned $6.43 earnings per share. The company’s revenue for the quarter was up 33.1% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, research analysts expect that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 29.47 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement The firm also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Investors of record on Monday, June 15th were paid a dividend of $0.525 per share. The ex-dividend date was Monday, June 15th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is presently 7.63%.
Trending Headlines about Meta Platforms Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: Wells Fargo raised its price target on Meta and kept an overweight rating, signaling expectations for meaningful upside from current levels. Benzinga report on Wells Fargo target hike Positive Sentiment: Rothschild & Co Redburn also boosted its target and reiterated a buy rating, reflecting growing optimism that Meta can monetize AI more effectively. Benzinga report on Rothschild & Co Redburn target hike Positive Sentiment: Multiple reports highlighted Meta’s expanding AI strategy, including possible cloud/compute sales and large enterprise deals, which could create a new revenue stream and support margins over time. Positive Sentiment: Bank of America said Meta is positioned to beat second-quarter expectations, citing healthy ad demand and AI-driven improvements ahead of earnings later this month. Positive Sentiment: Wall Street commentary continues to frame Meta as a key beneficiary of the AI spending boom, with investors watching whether infrastructure investment can be monetized faster than expected. Neutral Sentiment: A comparison piece versus Pinterest and a broader “Mag 7” article mainly added background, but did not change the core investment thesis for META. Negative Sentiment: Meta is facing a Tennessee trial over claims that Instagram was designed to be addictive and contributed to youth mental-health issues, adding legal and regulatory risk. Negative Sentiment: A New York Times report said Meta’s AI moderation mistakenly banned user accounts, raising questions about product reliability and trust in its automated systems. Negative Sentiment: Ongoing investor concerns remain around heavy AI spending, data-center financing, and whether returns on that capital will justify the expense. About Meta Platforms (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
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Aware Super v 1. čtvrtletí koupil nový podíl ve společnosti Meta Platforms za zhruba 160,6 mil. USD. Získal 280 727 akcií a Meta je jeho 7. největší pozicí.
Aware Super Pty Ltd as trustee of Aware Super purchased a new position in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The institutional investor purchased 280,727 shares of the social networking company’s stock, valued at approximately $160,612,000. Meta Platforms comprises about 2.4% of Aware Super Pty Ltd as trustee of Aware Super’s holdings, making the stock its 7th largest holding.
Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently made changes to their positions in the company. RHL Group LLC purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter valued at $28,000. Strategic Wealth Advisors LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth $29,000. Niles Investment Management LLC purchased a new position in Meta Platforms in the 4th quarter worth $29,000. Bayban lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 100.0% in the first quarter. Bayban now owns 70 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $40,000 after purchasing an additional 35 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Safe Harbor Fiduciary LLC purchased a new stake in Meta Platforms during the fourth quarter valued at about $42,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 79.91% of the company’s stock.
Meta Platforms Trading Down 0.3% NASDAQ META opened at $643.81 on Wednesday. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a fifty-two week low of $520.26 and a fifty-two week high of $796.25. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.24, a quick ratio of 2.35 and a current ratio of 2.35. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $604.93 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $626.52. The stock has a market cap of $1.63 trillion, a P/E ratio of 23.40, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 1.14 and a beta of 1.25.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last posted its earnings results on Wednesday, April 29th. The social networking company reported $10.44 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $6.67 by $3.77. The firm had revenue of $56.31 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $55.56 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 36.93% and a net margin of 32.84%.The business’s revenue was up 33.1% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the firm earned $6.43 earnings per share. On average, analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 29.47 earnings per share for the current year.
Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement The business also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Thursday, June 25th. Shareholders of record on Monday, June 15th were given a dividend of $0.525 per share. This represents a $2.10 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 0.3%. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, June 15th. Meta Platforms’s payout ratio is presently 7.63%.
Insider Activity at Meta Platforms In other Meta Platforms news, CFO Susan J. Li sold 9,195 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction dated Monday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $607.84, for a total value of $5,589,088.80. Following the completion of the sale, the chief financial officer directly owned 13,186 shares in the company, valued at $8,014,978.24. This trade represents a 41.08% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which is available at this link. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Also, CTO Andrew Bosworth sold 7,847 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, May 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $607.83, for a total value of $4,769,642.01. Following the sale, the chief technology officer directly owned 414 shares in the company, valued at approximately $251,641.62. The trade was a 94.99% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. The transaction was executed under a pre-arranged Rule 10b5-1 trading plan. The sale was made to cover tax withholding obligations related to the vesting of equity awards. Insiders have sold a total of 37,948 shares of company stock valued at $23,184,319 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 13.53% of the company’s stock.
Analysts Set New Price Targets A number of brokerages have recently issued reports on META. Guggenheim reduced their price objective on Meta Platforms from $850.00 to $800.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research note on Thursday, April 30th. Benchmark began coverage on Meta Platforms in a report on Tuesday, June 2nd. They set a “buy” rating for the company. Citizens Jmp decreased their price target on Meta Platforms from $825.00 to $800.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research note on Friday, July 10th. Wall Street Zen downgraded Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research report on Saturday, May 16th. Finally, Bank of America dropped their price objective on Meta Platforms from $885.00 to $820.00 and set a “buy” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, April 20th. Five investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, thirty-four have issued a Buy rating, eight have assigned a Hold rating and one has issued a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms currently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus target price of $835.64.
View Our Latest Report on Meta Platforms
Key Stories Impacting Meta Platforms Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: Wells Fargo raised its price target on Meta and kept an overweight rating, signaling expectations for meaningful upside from current levels. Benzinga report on Wells Fargo target hike Positive Sentiment: Rothschild & Co Redburn also boosted its target and reiterated a buy rating, reflecting growing optimism that Meta can monetize AI more effectively. Benzinga report on Rothschild & Co Redburn target hike Positive Sentiment: Multiple reports highlighted Meta’s expanding AI strategy, including possible cloud/compute sales and large enterprise deals, which could create a new revenue stream and support margins over time. Positive Sentiment: Bank of America said Meta is positioned to beat second-quarter expectations, citing healthy ad demand and AI-driven improvements ahead of earnings later this month. Positive Sentiment: Wall Street commentary continues to frame Meta as a key beneficiary of the AI spending boom, with investors watching whether infrastructure investment can be monetized faster than expected. Neutral Sentiment: A comparison piece versus Pinterest and a broader “Mag 7” article mainly added background, but did not change the core investment thesis for META. Negative Sentiment: Meta is facing a Tennessee trial over claims that Instagram was designed to be addictive and contributed to youth mental-health issues, adding legal and regulatory risk. Negative Sentiment: A New York Times report said Meta’s AI moderation mistakenly banned user accounts, raising questions about product reliability and trust in its automated systems. Negative Sentiment: Ongoing investor concerns remain around heavy AI spending, data-center financing, and whether returns on that capital will justify the expense. Meta Platforms Profile (Free Report)
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
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Žaloba tvrdí, že Meta při výběru zaměstnanců k propuštění použila nástroje AI, ale zaměstnanci zatím nedokážou prokázat, jak přesně byly využity. Soud zatím zamítl jejich návrh na dočasný zákaz dokončení propouštění 26 zaměstnanců.
Item 1 of 3 A 3D-printed Meta logo and word "AI" are seen in this illustration created on July 20, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
[1/3]A 3D-printed Meta logo and word "AI" are seen in this illustration created on July 20, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SummaryCompaniesCase against Meta is first to target AI use in layoffsWorkers grappling with lack of evidence, arbitration pactsObstacles help explain dearth of AI-related lawsuits by workersJuly 22 (Reuters) - A novel lawsuit claiming that Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab relied on discriminatory AI tools to select employees for layoffs highlights the problems workers face in suing employers over the new technology, including proving how it was actually used.
The case helps illustrate why a widely predicted wave of employment lawsuits over AI use has yet to arrive. Legal experts say workers often have little understanding of how AI systems are used in the workplace and many have also signed away their right to sue in court, agreeing instead to resolve workplace disputes through a private process called arbitration that can keep such claims from ever being tested publicly.
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In a ruling last week declining to block Meta from finalizing the terminations of 26 people who sued, U.S. District Judge William Orrick identified a fundamental obstacle for plaintiffs who allege that AI discriminated against them: "they were not in the rooms where it happened."
That means workers like the Meta employees, who claim they were targeted for layoffs because they have disabilities or took medical or family leave, often cannot muster the evidence of wrongdoing necessary to quickly secure a win in court.
And they face another obstacle: Like a majority of U.S. workers, the plaintiffs are bound by an arbitration agreement, meaning they cannot band together in a class action, put their case before a jury, or push for a multimillion-dollar settlement in open court.
ARBITRATION AGREEMENTS BLOCK LAWSUITSCompanies generally prefer arbitration, which they say is a faster, cheaper alternative to court, while worker advocates say it often favors employers and discourages workers from bringing claims. The arbitration process is also confidential, so it can shield unfavorable evidence unearthed in an individual case from wider disclosure.
"Even if you establish that a particular system would produce discriminatory outcomes left and right, you have no way of sharing that information with other employees," said Christine Webber, co-chair of the civil rights and employment practice at plaintiffs' firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll. Webber's firm is not involved in the Meta case.
Webber and other plaintiffs' lawyers said those hurdles explain the lack of high-profile court cases involving employers' use of AI even as it becomes routine, and why even the lawsuit against Meta seeking only temporary relief is unusual.
One of the few cases to emerge over companies' workplace use of AI tools involves Workday (WDAY.O), opens new tab, which is facing claims that its popular HR management software unlawfully filtered out applicants for jobs at other companies based on race, age and disability. Arbitration is not an issue in that case because Workday does not have agreements with its customers' job applicants. Workday denies the allegations.
PLAINTIFFS SEEK INJUNCTIONThe agreements signed by the Meta workers contain a common, narrow exception for seeking a court order that temporarily blocks one side from taking some irreversible action. But that exception is typically invoked in cases involving the alleged theft of trade secrets or the solicitation of clients or employees, and not layoffs of at-will workers.
Orrick denied the plaintiffs a temporary restraining order that would have stopped Meta from completing the layoffs. He must still decide whether to issue a preliminary injunction, a temporary but longer-lasting order that would put the workers back in their jobs until their individual arbitration cases are resolved. He said he could change his mind and grant the injunction if the plaintiffs come up with evidence "regarding whether and how AI was used in an improper manner."
A hearing is scheduled for August 24, and the losing side can appeal Orrick's decision.
The plaintiffs claim that in selecting jobs to cut, Meta consulted AI tools that tracked productivity and AI token usage (a measure of how much workers use AI tools), disadvantaging people who missed work because of medical conditions or to care for family members.
They allege that Meta used a number of internal AI-assisted systems including a large language model assistant known as "Metamate," an employee-trained "second brain" that tracked workers' communications and documents, and a productivity score drawn from scanning keystrokes, screen content, emails and browser history, according to the lawsuit.
Meta said in court filings and statements last week in response to the lawsuit that humans made all of the decisions concerning nearly 8,000 layoffs announced earlier this year and has denied treating AI usage as a basis for identifying workers to terminate or to conduct performance reviews. A Meta spokesman said on Tuesday that the company had no further comment.
Orrick said in his decision that he was bound to take Meta at its word since the plaintiffs could not present any evidence to rebut those claims.
The plaintiffs' lawyers in a joint statement last week acknowledged the hurdles they face in gathering evidence, even calling on current and former Meta employees to contact them with knowledge of how AI was used in the selection process.
"Meta holds virtually all the relevant information," they said.
Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Matthew Lewis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Dan Wiessner (@danwiessner) reports on labor and employment and immigration law, including litigation and policy making. He can be reached at [email protected].
Meta chce z drahé AI infrastruktury udělat cloudový byznys, který prodává přístup k vlastním modelům. Akcie se po nedávném růstu vrátily nad 643,93 USD.
Due to Meta Platforms' (META 0.30%) plans to spend massive sums on artificial intelligence infrastructure, its shares have fallen substantially from the 52-week high of $796.25 they reached last August. But the stock's trajectory has changed in recent days, edging up past $600.
The catalyst for Wall Street's renewed optimism is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's plan to turn the company's expensive AI infrastructure into a cloud computing business that sells access to its artificial intelligence models. This will provide it with a new revenue stream and diversify Meta beyond its advertising-fueled social media foundation.
That new direction could become a key sales driver, as it has been for other tech titans that pursued cloud computing, such as Amazon, Microsoft, and notably, Meta's chief rival in digital advertising, Google parent Alphabet. But is Meta joining this cadre too late, or does its AI opportunity change the dynamics of its investment thesis?
Image source: Getty Images.
A look at Meta's cloud computing ambitions Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are the world's top three providers of cloud computing capacity, demonstrating that this market is a natural fit for tech businesses already pouring money into data center infrastructure. Meta -- the fourth of the big hyperscalers -- finally throwing its hat into the ring makes sense, especially since it plans to spend as much as $145 billion on capital expenditures this year, up substantially from 2025's $72.2 billion.
However, it could take years for the revenue it generates from its cloud business to become meaningful. The Facebook parent hoped to make the metaverse a significant new sales and profit source, and even changed its name back in 2021 to reflect that goal, but to no avail. After enormous investments in its metaverse aspirations, the company continues to make nearly all of its revenue from advertising. For instance, $55 billion of its $56.3 billion in first-quarter sales came from ads.
Yet Meta's cloud strategy is a different beast. Artificial intelligence is already gaining broad market traction, unlike the metaverse. The company is providing its proprietary AI models to customers for a fee, akin to the approach adopted by the likes of OpenAI.
Moreover, the barriers to entry in this space are high. Developing a proprietary AI model requires significant funding to establish the necessary infrastructure. So much money is required that even Alphabet's enormous cash-generating business isn't enough to cover its costs; it recently engaged in a massive $84.75 billion equity offering, the largest in U.S. history.
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Meta's approach to AI Another factor making AI a unique opportunity is that Zuckerberg sees the tech evolving into a superintelligence.
"We have begun to see glimpses of our AI systems improving themselves," he said. Rather than this technology being used in a general capacity, he envisions AIs tailored to individual needs.
"Meta's vision is to bring personal superintelligence to everyone," Zuckerberg said. "We believe in putting this power in people's hands to direct it toward what they value in their own lives."
If Meta can deliver on this vision, its AI cloud business could become a substantial revenue source. After all, Google's cloud division delivered $17.7 billion in sales last year, representing fast growth from 2021's $5.5 billion, the year before OpenAI's ChatGPT exploded onto the scene.
Even though Meta's stock has ticked upward, its forward price-to-earnings ratio of 21 remains near its low point for the past year. This suggests a good share price valuation, making now an opportune time to consider buying Meta shares.
Robert Izquierdo has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
