Meta Platforms (META) stock had a weak month in November, dropping as much as 15% due to the downturn in the tech stock market. META has fallen about 16% over the past 21 trading days. This recent decline points to renewed concerns over slowing user growth and heavy investments in artificial intelligence and reality labs. However, some experts still call META stock a buy, suggesting now is the time to buy the stock.
Analysts at Freedom Capital Markets recently upgraded their stock forecasts for Meta Platforms, suggesting the tech giant’s stock price will soar. Analyst Seiken Ismailov upgraded Meta from Hold to Buy and set a price target of $800. Wolf Research, Guggenheim, and TD Cowen maintain similarly high price targets, indicating strong growth potential.
Additionally, Meta may have received a bullish catalyst on Tuesday that could drive the stock higher. Meta recently won a major antitrust case against the FTC, allowing it to retain ownership of Instagram and WhatsApp. In his ruling, Judge James Boasberg said the FTC failed to prove that Meta acquired Instagram and WhatsApp with the intent of eliminating them as competitors in the social media market. “As apps grow and fall, move from one fad to another, and add new features year after year, it’s no surprise that the FTC has struggled to fix the boundaries of Meta’s product market,” Boasberg wrote in his ruling.
“Yet, Meta is competing with the same old rivals as it has been for the past decade and continues to claim that it holds monopoly power within its small group and maintains that exclusivity through anticompetitive acquisitions. But regardless of whether Meta enjoyed monopoly power in the past, the agency must show that it continues to hold such power in the present,” Boasberg added.
While Wall Street analysts other than Mr. Ismailov are worried about Meta, Mark Zuckerberg isn’t either. “The Meta Superintelligence Lab is off to a great start and we continue to lead the AI glasses industry. If we can deliver even a fraction of the opportunities ahead, the next few years will be the most exciting in our history,” he said on the earnings call.
META is trading in the middle of its 52-week range and below its 200-day simple moving average. The company’s stock currently trades at a P/E multiple of 25.9x and a P/EBIT multiple of 17.8x. It also delivered a median return of 74.5% in less than a year after the sharp decline since 2010.
