Meta Explodes

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Stock skyrockets to all-time high
Meta offers its first-ever dividend

Facebook parent Meta shares jumped over 21% in post-earnings as the price closed at a record high of $475 [1] a share on Friday.

Strongest quarterly sales in two years and its first-ever dividend quickly added over $197 ^[2] billion in market cap for the tech giant.

Meta has invested heavily in AI to make its ads smarter. And obviously, that paid off.

Revenue came in at $40.11 ^[3] billion, against the estimate of $39.18 billion, as daily active users smashed expectations of 2.08 billion, reaching 2.11 billion.

Monthly active users grew 3% year-over-year to a record high of 3.07 billion ^[4]

Source: Company financials

Additionally, Meta increased its stock repurchase program by $50 billion and started a quarterly dividend of $0.50 per share.

Looking ahead to the first quarter, Meta projects its revenue to be in the range of $34.6 billion to $37 billion, which is above the market forecast of $33.6 billion.

All that positive news was digested quite well by investors as Meta share prices exploded, pretty much vertically following the quarterly report.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg was also pleased with the results. “We’ve made a lot of progress on our vision for advancing AI and the metaverse.”

The big issue for Meta continues to be its Reality Labs unit, which although passed $1 billion in sales, this quarter, also recorded its biggest quarterly loss in the last few quarters of $4.65 ^[5] billion.

Source: Company financials

The reality labs segments include augmented, mixed, and virtual reality-related consumer hardware like the Meta-Ray-Ban smart glasses and Quest 3, along with software and content.

After cutting jobs and costs during the tech downturn that began in 2021, Meta has become more efficient and profitable, boosting its valuation. The company reduced its staff by 22% from the previous year, reflecting the industry’s efforts to grow.

Finally, EPS came much better than expected at $5.33, as the cut in operating costs, or the “year of efficiencies,” as its CEO labeled it, helped lift Meta’s bottom line.

The stock is up over 35% since the start of the year.

Investors can long Meta using our 1x Facebook, 2x Facebook, 3x Facebook.

Alternatively, Investors can short Meta using our -3x Facebook.

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