Research archive for META

Last week, Meta released some really good-looking numbers but the share price fell, along with the rest of the tech sector. Thankfully, Friday and Monday have both been strong up days, and it's trading above $300 again.

Meta Platforms is a slightly controversial Vestact-recommended portfolio holding. The social media giant has 3.9 billion monthly users on either Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp or Threads.

Meta Platforms (the company previously known as Facebook) had excellent results out last week, and the share price shot higher. It's now trading at around $325 per share, much closer to its all-time high of around $380 per share, and a far cry from its disastrously low price of $88 in October 2022.

Meta Platforms has unveiled the latest version of its mixed-reality headset, the Meta Quest 3, as a lower-cost alternative to the upcoming headset expected from Apple.

UK regulators have dealt an irritating blow to Meta as the tech giant was ordered to sell its GIF database and search engine, Giphy. In 2020, Meta acquired Giphy for approximately $400 million.

Meta (formerly Facebook) was fined a record 1.2 billion Euros ($1.3 billion) by the European privacy regulators for transferring EU user data to the US. Meta's share price rose 1.1% yesterday, now up 99% in 2023 so far.

Last week Meta Platforms posted very strong results, pushing the stock up 14% for the day. The company beat expectations for revenue and profits, and set guidance for the coming quarter higher than previously forecast. Its underlying operations, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp each performed well.

Meta is one of our more controversial holdings. Many clients don't like it because it went from $330 a share in January 2022 to $90 in November 2022. Ouch! Also, despite how much we love interacting on our phones, some people view social media companies as the modern equivalent of cigarette companies - highly profitable and selling an addictive product that is bad for society.

The competition for online advertising is dominated by three companies. Google and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) are established players but Amazon has really burst onto the scene in the last two years.

Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, reported numbers on Wednesday night that were very well-received by the market. Shares soared 23% on Thursday after fourth-quarter revenue beat expectations and management announced a $40 billion buyback programme.

The Meta share price has been crushed this year. A lot of that has to do with the huge amounts of money being ploughed into the Metaverse. Zuckerberg is certainly feeling the pressure and has recently assured investors that he has a few tricks up his sleeve.

There are 4 main reasons the Meta Platforms share price has crashed. It's heavy investment in the metaverse, stronger competition, Apple changing iPhone privacy settings and the general weak market sentiment. I have a counterargument for all four of these issues. Some of them are strong, other factors might take longer to unravel, if ever.

Investors are very interested to see what is happening under the Meta Platforms hood. After Wednesday's results release, the market did not like what it saw. Revenues were down 4%, costs were up 19% and users only increased by 4%. The stock tumbled 24% on Thursday. Ouch.

Meta just unveiled its latest virtual reality headsets as it makes its way into the world of premium VR devices which are designed for creators and corporates. Their latest device is called the Meta Quest Pro which includes a number of technological improvements from the Oculus Quest 2, which was launched in 2020.

Hopper HQ has released data showing the top individuals who earn the most per post on Instagram. I'm glad to say the list is not just dominated by the Kardashian clan, but it's a fair mix of self-starters.