What is Meta Stock?
Meta Stock is a popular software platform for charting and technical analysis of financial markets. It is widely used by traders and investors to analyze price movements, identify trends, and make informed decisions in the stock, forex, and other financial markets.
Meta Stock provides a range of tools and features for technical analysis, including various chart types, technical indicators, and drawing tools. Traders can use it to analyze historical price data, create and test trading strategies, and generate buy or sell signals based on their analysis.
The platform also offers a wide range of market data, news, and research tools to help users stay informed about market developments. Meta Stock is known for its user-friendly interface and the ability to customize charts and analysis tools according to individual preferences.
It’s important to note that MetaStock is a software tool and not a financial service or brokerage. Traders and investors typically use MetaStock in conjunction with their chosen brokerage platforms to execute trades based on their technical analysis.
Following a wildly successful year for Meta stock, it seems the social media behemoth has once again met investor expectations. Meta Platforms (META) shares surged late on Thursday following the release of the company’s first-ever dividend plans and better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings.
The parent company of Facebook and Instagram reported earnings of $5.33 per share on sales of $40.1 billion for the quarter that ended in December. FactSet reports that analysts had predicted the business would report earnings of $4.82 per share on revenue of $39.1 billion.
While earnings grew 203%, sales increased by 25% year over year for the quarter.
Additionally, Meta announced that it is beginning a 50 cent dividend per share of common stock, which will be paid to stockholders who were on record as of February 22 on March 26.
Meta predicted revenues for the current quarter to range from $34.5 billion to $37 billion. FactSet reports that analysts had anticipated $33.9 billion in Meta sales for the March quarter prior to the release of the report.
In after-hours trading today, Meta shares shot up more than 14% on the stock market to 450.42.
“We have made a lot of progress on our ambition for expanding AI and the metaverse,” stated Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg in a news release. “We had a fantastic quarter as our community and business continue to grow.”
Meta Q4: Based on the Data
According to Meta, the number of monthly active Facebook users increased by 3% annually to 3.07 billion.
Nearly all of Meta’s revenue, as usual, came from digital advertising sales; the business earned $38.7 billion in ad revenues for the quarter, up 24% from the same period previous year.
While Meta launched sales for its most recent virtual reality headset last fall, the division posted a $4.6 billion loss, adding to the massive losses from the company’s metaverse bets. Meanwhile, Meta’s Family of Apps generated a $21 billion income in the quarter, compared to $10.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Reels, and Threads are all part of the Family of Apps. Despite this, the metaverse-focused Reality Labs division exceeded $1 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time.
At the end of 2023, Meta had 67,317 employees, down 22% from the beginning of the year, according to the firm. As part of what Zuckerberg referred to as a “Year of Efficiency,” Meta conducted major layoffs.
Meta Stock: Up 14% So Far in 2018
Before the news, Meta stock increased 1.2% in Thursday’s trading to close at 394.78. Including Thursday’s after-hours movement, Meta shares have gained 14% since the beginning of the year, building on a 194% increase in value from the previous year.
After surpassing $1 trillion in market valuation in January, Meta was able to re-join the elite group of digital behemoths.
In the meantime, Meta Platforms is included in the IBD 50 list of top growth stocks and appears on the leaders list of the IBD Leaderboard premium stock-ideas service. As of Thursday, Meta has outperformed 96% of all stocks according to IBD Stock Checkup, which rates the company’s relative strength at 96.
In addition, Meta has the best-possible 99 IBD Composite Rating, indicating strength in a variety of technical and fundamental parameters associated with superior stock performance.
Apple-Parent Meta Report Earnings; Amazon; Facebook
Following the social media company’s release of a higher-than-expected revenue prediction for its March quarter, Meta stock platform’s experienced a strong increase in late Thursday trade.
According to FactSet, Meta announced adjusted profits per share for the fourth quarter of $5.33, exceeding the $4.82 consensus forecast from Wall Street.
Revenue above experts’ forecasts of $39.1 billion, coming in at $40.1 billion.
Additionally, Meta stock provided strong guidance, estimating its first-quarter revenue to be between $34.5 billion and $37 billion, compared with Wall Street’s $33.9 billion expectation.
Additionally, the first-ever dividend of $0.50 per share, due on March 26, 2024, was announced by Meta’s board of directors.
Following the earnings announcement, Meta stock shares increased by over 9%.
Sales for the quarter increased 25% from the same period last year to more than $40 billion, while the tech giant on Thursday revealed that earnings for the three months ended in December surged more than 200% year-over-year to $14 billion, beating Wall Street analysts’ estimates.
Along with the $50 billion share buyback, the company announced its first-ever cash dividend of $0.50 per share, which will be distributed on March 26 to shareholders of record as of February 22. While dividends and buybacks help to raise stock prices by giving investors cash rewards for holding the meta stock, they are also heavily criticized for artificially inflating the price of the stock without investing in improvements to the underlying business or hiring new employees.
The company released a statement stating, “We expect to pay a cash dividend on a quarterly basis going ahead.”
In after-hours trading on Thursday, Meta stock (META) shares surged more than 14% in response to the news.
In an astonishingly successful attempt to reverse the previous year’s revenue declines and share price weakness, Zuckerberg announced Meta’s self-described “year of efficiency” in February of last year, which included layoffs and other spending cuts. Thursday’s report marked the fourth quarter of that year.
As of Thursday’s closing bell, Meta’s shares had surged 109% since this time last year. The firm reported that its profits for the full year 2023 increased 69% year over year to $39 billion.
“finished the data center initiatives and the personnel layoffs, and essentially finished the facilities consolidation activities,” Meta stock stated on Thursday that it had done by the end of 2023.
In a Thursday night call with analysts, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated, “Our communities are growing and our companies are back on track. A big thank you to all of our employees, partners, stockholders and everyone in our community for staying with us and making 2023 such a success.”
The report released on Thursday also coincides with Zuckerberg’s appearance on Capitol Hill one day ago, where he testified alongside colleagues in the industry regarding the effects of the company’s platforms on younger users. In the midst of the hearing, Zuckerberg made an unusual apology to parents whose children had suffered from Facebook and Instagram.
Zuckerberg addressed the parents, “No one should have to go through what your families have gone through, which is why we invest so much and will continue doing industry-leading efforts.”
The company announced on Thursday that it had over 2.1 billion daily active Facebook users, up 6% from the previous year. However, in a move that Meta stock had previously hinted at, CFO Susan Li of Meta said the company will no longer report Facebook user numbers, indicating that it is concentrating on its larger app family and, possibly, that Facebook’s growth potential is limited given its already enormous scale.
Only daily active users of Meta’s app family—which had an average of 3.19 billion users in December—will be reported going forward, the company announced.
Additionally, Zuckerberg mentioned on Thursday that although Threads is still smaller than its rivals, it has achieved 130 million monthly active users, showing robust growth. Threads is Meta’s counterpart to X, formerly Twitter, which it debuted late last year.
A second noteworthy finding from Thursday’s report was Meta’s average price per ad, which increased by 2% year over year in the December quarter. This was the first time in the previous year that average price per ad increased rather than decreased, and it is a crucial metric for the company’s primary advertising business.
Meta stock anticipates revenue in the first quarter of 2024 to range from $34.5 billion to $37 billion, a 20% increase on the low end from the previous year.