Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META) is still known as Facebook to most investors. One thing that has changed drastically is how Meta’s pre-earnings and post-earnings performance has been. While the S&P 500 and NASDAQ had hit all-time highs, Meta was down 5.5% at $751.67 at the close ahead of earnings, down just over 5.5% from its most recent all-time high of $796.25. And the post-earnings reaction had its shares down more than 11% at $667.00 in mid-day trading.
Oggonomics does not create formal earnings report, but one thing is very unusual in analyst research report is that more than a dozen firms on Wall Street have cut their price targets on Meta.
While Meta actually beat earnings at $7.25 EPS on a reported basis, the social media giant also had a $15.9 billion one-time tax charge that was related to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Meta had estimates in a $6.50 to $7.00 range, and its report from a year earlier was $6.03 EPS. Revenue growth of 26% to $51.24 billion was also above estimates, driven by its advertising momentum and growth in daily active users.
Facebook’s guidance of $56 billion to $59 billion in revenues does imply that revenue growth is expected to decelerate to 18% to 19%. The problem outside of the tax charge is that 2025 expenses are continuing to rise, with capex now projected to be $116 billion to $118 billion and capital spending of $70 billion to $72 billion.
Canaccord Genuity Maintained its $900 price target, and Rosenblatt raised its price target $1117 from $1086 in the post-earnings report.
So far, there have been minimal analyst downgrades seen from major firms on Wall Street. Oppenheimer downgraded Meta to Perform from Outperform, and Benchmark downgraded Meta to Hold from Buy.
Please note that all ratings and price targets above are assigned to each firm named in this report. Oggonomics does not maintain any formal rating or price target on Meta.
Here is a list of the price target cuts without ratings changes that have been seen as of late morning trading on Thursday:
- BofA Securities lowered its price objective to $810 from $900
- Barclays lowered its price target to $770 from $810
- Bernstein lowered its price target to $870 from $900
- Cantor Fitzgerald lowered its price target to $830 from $920
- Citi lowered its price target to $850 from $915
- Goldman Sachs lowered its price target to $815 from $870
- Jefferies lowered its price target to $910 from $950
- JPMorgan lowered its price target to $800 from $875
- KeyBanc Capital Markets lowered its price target to $875 from $905
- Mizuho lowered its price target to $815 from $925
- Oppenheimer lowered its price target to $825 from $870
- Piper Sandler lowered its price target to $840 from $880
- Raymond James lowered its price target to $825 from $900
- RBC Capital Markets lowered its price target to $810 from $840
- Stifel lowered its price target to $875 from $900
- Truist Securities lowered its price target to $875 from $900
- Wells Fargo lowered its price target to $802 from $837
The long and short of the matter is that Wall Street is by and large sticking by Meta Platforms for long-term investors. That’s obviously not the case for short-term traders. The one reality check to that stance is that price targets have been cut almost unilaterally after the earnings report.
It’s not unheard of for Facebook to plunge after earnings. That said, the double-digit decline is not the norm and Wall Street analysts have generally raised Meta’s price targets instead of cutting the targets.
