Meta Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Results

https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2023/Meta-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2022-Results/default.aspx

by kgwgk • 3 years ago

165 278 3 years ago

investor.fb.com

chollida17• 3 years ago

Numbers:

- Q4 add revenue of $31B Est of $30B

- $40B share bye back, far better than spending on the meta verse and an admission growth is over

- note to above, check out their existing cash on hand

- VR lost $4.2B, come on guys on revenue of $700M, again, come on guys get someone who knows what they are doing running this area

- 86,500 employees, I'm guessing alot of these are in recruitment, content moderation, etc

- laid off/fired 13% of workforce so far this running year

- daily users of more than 2B, wow, growth of 5% yoy, that is good

- shares up 15% probably alot to do with the Fed and tax loss selling holding period being over, so people putting this trade back on

- Total restructuring charges recorded under our FoA segment were $3.76 billion and RL segment were $440 million during the fourth quarter of 202 (FOA is family of applications and RL is reality lab). not sure what those charges are for, look into this.

- on adds, from Bloomberg reporting "Ad impressions increased by 18% while average price per ad decreased by 16% for 2022."

- So the add number they can game went up and the one affected by market force went down.

Thoughts:

- attempting to come back form Q2 and Q3 yoy decrease in revenue

- watch ad revenue, snap was down on large ad revenue declines. FB should be the same given they are in the same ad markets

- how often is tiktok mentioned by FB, or will they continue to pretend they have no competitors?

- Fed announced a small rate hike that the market loved so FB could rip if they perform even moderately well

- as always check out what shares of SNAP, Pinterest and GOOG do on Meta results, especially if add revenue is up, well maybe not SNAP as the market has given up on that company, GOOG and PINS are up, heck so is SNAP

- one other thing to watch closely is what Susan Li, the CFO says in the call, like what google did with Ruth Porat, they hired a numbers person to be the "adult" in the room to cut costs where possible.

Will the CFO talk about cutting costs or growign the company.

* note* I guess a huge $40B buy back indicates that FB's growth is over and Mark is capitulating to wall street here by handign back cash, rather than burning it on VR

kgwgk6• 3 years ago

- 86,500 employees, I'm guessing alot of these are in recruitment, content moderation, etc

Headcount was 86,482 as of December 31, 2022, an increase of 20% year-over-year. Our reported headcount includes a substantial majority of the approximately 11,000 employees impacted by the layoff we announced in November 2022, who will no longer be reflected in our headcount by the end of the first quarter of 2023.

MuffinFlavored6• 3 years ago

- laid off/fired 13% of workforce so far this running year

I wish it was acceptable/normal for companies to reveal how much more of their workforce (if any) they plan to layoff in the coming quarters

It's almost as if there's a need for headcount projections.

daily users of more than 2B, wow, growth of 5% yoy, that is good

eh, i always feel like this is dishonest for them. if a daily user is on whatsapp and they never see an ad, isn't that user just an expense for them? instagram users scrolling ads: revenue. facebook user scrolling ads: revenue. me talking to my family on whatsapp? unless they're benefiting from scanning the chat and delivering me ads on it (is this what they do? is it legal?) isn't it kind of like... they're paying the bandwidth/storage costs and getting very little out of it?

on adds, from Bloomberg reporting "Ad impressions increased by 18% while average price per ad decreased by 16% for 2022."

is this left over from "apple's privacy changes made our ad targeting less effective so we need to display more, lower quality ads that are worth less to get as many conversions as we used to previouly"?

pavlov2• 3 years ago

2B is the daily active users for Facebook specifically.

For the entire family of apps it’s 2.96 billion DAU (i.e. people who used one or several of FB/Insta/WhatsApp during the day).

qbasic_forever2• 3 years ago

Wow so with the 10 billion total loss on VR last earnings, are they now up to 14 billion spent on VR and metaverse? That's unbelievable for how little there is to show of it.

zmmmmm2• 3 years ago

That's unbelievable for how little there is to show of it

They multiplied the size of the market by an order of magnitude and they dominate the entire VR industry now?

Miraste5• 3 years ago

I would love to know where this money is going. $700M isn't bad revenue at all, that's probably more than all VR competitors combined and certainly enough to run the division off of. They canceled all the really promising/expensive R&D efforts like their own SoC and their own OS, so they're once more dependent on Android (eh) and Qualcomm (nooo). They haven't launched any major software and the hardware has stayed the same except for the massively underwhelming Quest Pro, which they're having to sell for $400 off right now.

Either the Quest 3 reveal is going to be stunning or bureaucratic bloat has grown to the point it's sinking the division.

codemac• 3 years ago

Re: Susan Li

Unlike Google, they did not hire the former EVP & CFO of Morgan Stanley, and next in line for Head of Treasury before she withdrew (making too much money at ms to move).

I think Susan seems great from afar (i am but a lowly swe), but it's hard to see them similar in any way. Susan Li joined FB in 2008 after her first job as an analyst for ~3 years at, you guessed it, Morgan Stanley.

throwthere• 3 years ago

They’re budgeting $30 billion on capex next year so I don’t think your stock buyback comments are accurate.

chollida17• 3 years ago

What about my comment do you think is inaccurate?

I verified the number it’s correct and they bought back $21B last year and has now been buying back stock since 2017.

jraby32• 3 years ago

In their last earnings transcript (3 months ago) they do talk a lot about Reels competing with TikTok and making a lot of traction.

They say that Reels growth is very high, but they haven’t built the tools yet for SMBs to advertise well with it, so revenue was relatively low but a focus for them going forward.

Haven’t read yesterday’s transcript yet but I’d assume more of the same.

modeless3• 3 years ago

+20% after hours, wow

JKCalhoun• 3 years ago

Wow is right. This feels kind of ... speculative.

modeless3• 3 years ago

The crash seemed speculative to me. This feels like a return to normal honestly.

rr888• 3 years ago

Its back on. Buy Tech! Crypto! Remember those Monkey NFTs? Buy Buy Buy!!!!!

mjfl• 3 years ago

After hours trading is often a mirage.

modeless3• 3 years ago

Not this time. +23% the following day

michaericalribo• 3 years ago

Seems like anti-tracking by Apple had a tangible impact on their business -- revenue down from last year.

mensetmanusman7• 3 years ago

Yeah it’s huge. Lots of small niche businesses in our area lost their route for finding new customers (General advertising too expensive for their market demo.).

ericmay5• 3 years ago

Yikes. Good lesson learned for them there I hope.

whateveracct2• 3 years ago

Sounds like it works then! Glad I always press "Ask App Not to Track"

el_nahual• 3 years ago

objectively this means you still get ads just less releavnt ones, no? It's not like the button says "Don't show me ads."

odood• 3 years ago

Let's see if Apple's own ad program will step into that void it created.

bdhe• 3 years ago

Funny how that works. How is Apple's ad platform doing these days? Does anyone know?

threeseed4• 3 years ago

* Meta runs an ad platform for their channels e.g. Instagram, Facebook.

* Apple runs an ad platform for their channels e.g. News+, App Store.

Each platform is tuned for the requirements, datasets etc unique to their own channels and you can't just drop one platform in another company.

blsapologist423• 3 years ago

Revenue increased (very slightly) on a constant currency basis

HDThoreaun5• 3 years ago

Cost per ad down 22% this quarter. Hard to say how much is the apple change versus other headwinds, but it definitely seems significant.

chaostheory2• 3 years ago

This is why I don’t understand people who are criticizing the pivot. Why focus on revenue that won’t be there if you don’t have your own dedicated hardware platform?

Yes, XR as a whole has a long way to go still, but it’s obvious that it’s the future

jihadjihad• 3 years ago

Net income down ~40% YoY ouch. Stock is up though!

MuffinFlavored6• 3 years ago

what's the main reason for this?

ra7• 3 years ago

$40B increase to their buyback program.

Edit: Actually meant announcement of an increase to buyback program, not that they've already done it.

blsapologist423• 3 years ago

Costs went up a lot, primarily from increased payroll. That's why they did a big layoff, although I believe they still have more employees than end of 2021 even after that.

nwellnhof• 3 years ago

Probably a huge short squeeze.

paulpauper2• 3 years ago

Up 17% in AH, on top of huge gains over the past 2 months. Nuts. It looks like it really wants to get back to $300+ It shows how all this talk about metaverse losses was overblown. This is why my best piece of financial advice is to tune out the media. By the time something is a narrative, it's too late. If the media is talking about how Facebook peaked or is the next myspace, this is time to buy. Same for Netflix.

Metaverse notwithstanding, Facebook and Instagram are still huge cash cows. Ad CPCs are really high, especially mobile ads. Companies, especially in financial services and healthcare, paying so much $ for clicks to target older people, retirees, etc. and also people with medical problems. Obesity epidemic means more healthcare spending, same for people living longer.

MuffinFlavored6• 3 years ago

Facebook and Instagram are still huge cash cows.

I wonder what that makes TikTok then? Do we have any insight into how much ad cash Facebook + Instagram generate compared to TikTok?

avrionov• 3 years ago

$5B last year 2022.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1305708/tiktok-ad-revenu...

toephu2• 3 years ago

TikTok still losing money though

Operating Loss At TikTok Parent ByteDance Topped $7 Billion Last Year, WSJ Reports [1]

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/tiktok-parent-bytedance-sees-lo...

melling• 3 years ago

It feels like only 3 months ago I was repeatedly trying to convince HN readers that Meta was a great investment opportunity at a P/E of 9. In fact, it was…:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33572187

Markets aren’t efficient. People are biased and can’t look past them.

There’s quite a bit of knowledge on HN. As a group, we could do much better understanding the markets.

dangwhy2• 3 years ago

markets are irrational except when it goes up 17% AH ?

dd363• 3 years ago

Markets measure the tiny fraction of buyers and sellers on a given day and ignore the super majority of holders. It almost feels like length of ownership should be more determinative of price movements than anything else. If long-term holders start selling, it’s concerning.

blsapologist423• 3 years ago

How much money did you make by doing this? Talk is cheap...

endisneigh4• 3 years ago

No one could have predicted they’d buy back such a ridiculous amount of their own stock.

paulpauper2• 3 years ago

Markets aren’t efficient. People are biased and can’t look past them.

I think they are efficient most of the time, but there are edge cases that allow for higher risk-adjusted returns than predicted by a purely efficient framework. A notable example is Renaissance Technologies.

another_story• 3 years ago

In the last 3 months the entire market has come back up. I have safe agricultural stocks that have risen nearly as much in this time. FB bouncing back and having a low PE doesn't make it a good investment. People are looking longterm at their prospects and where they're dumping their cash and they don't like it.

deltree712• 3 years ago

HN is the worst place for investment.

The smarter the people, the bigger the ego and limited the vision.

Between ArsTechnica, HN and reddit and you can bet against popular opinions on this. You can also identify cult formation too.

SilasX• 3 years ago

That goes to the full discussion of an unrelated story. Direct link to the subthread where you made the FB comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33573232

(Edit: I would have referred to the company as Meta, like you did, but “the Meta comment” could have been confusing, even with the capitalized letter.)

j-bos• 3 years ago

Markets aren't efficient.

Markets: eventually efficient

grog454• 3 years ago

Every consensus is potentially wrong, which makes it an opportunity.

I was repeatedly trying to convince HN readers

There's not much point. Invest how you see fit and let others figure things out the hard way.

georgeecollins• 3 years ago

I listened!!

fdsjjfds3• 3 years ago

You're not crowing about short-term stock gains, are you? Because that would be a terrible basis for financial advice.

matwood• 3 years ago

I said months ago when they announced layoffs that Meta is fine. They are a literal cash volcano. Zucks foray into the metaverse to the tune of 10B/year is dumb, but it's a cash expense. Eventually he'll tone that investment down and that expense will flow right to the bottom line. Full disclosure, I am long Meta.

baron816• 3 years ago

I bought a small amount of META when the narrative of its downfall hit its peak. It’s the first individual stock I’ve bought in 12 years. I’m now going to be up about 60%.

thunky4• 3 years ago

I bought a small amount

This is why it's really hard to win big buying individual stocks. You finally pulled the trigger, and you won, but you never even had a chance to make more than a small gain.

Say you even bought $100k, which is probably much more than most mere mortals have the stomach to "place a bet" with. You'd be up 60k, which is great, but probably not life changing. And now you have to decide if you want to cash it out or let it ride and risk losing it.

On the other hand, it doesn't take much intestinal fortitude to park 100k in VTSAX and sleep well every night.

rvz2• 3 years ago

This is why my best piece of financial advice is to tune out the media.

I'm trying very hard to not say 'I told them so'.

In fact, I said this before here [0] [1] [2] too many times to stop listening to the nonsense from the media. Meta has lots of cash to last for another decade and they are still printing money.

Such calls for the death of Meta Platforms on HN and in the media has once again always been greatly exaggerated.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31832439

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991718

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32256465

__derek__2• 3 years ago

Buying back another $40 billion in stock also helps. The narrative around metaverse costs was largely that they should return cash to shareholders rather than dumping so much of it into that incinerator. It looks like the board took that advice.

jlmorton• 3 years ago

rather than dumping so much of it into that incinerator.

It's strange to me that people think Reality Labs is an incinerator. Truly, without exaggeration, I think this entire perception is based on the ridiculous early Horizon Worlds screenshots Mark Zuckerberg posted, which did a ton of damage to Meta.

But Horizon Worlds is not The Metaverse, and it's not Reality Labs! It's one part of it. Reality Labs has game studios, the leading VR/AR hardware, all kinds of software packages to make working in the Metaverse possible, like Horizon Workrooms, Horizon Remote Desktop, and quite a bit more. They are quickly developing a fairly insurmountable moat.

Meanwhile, Apple is also dumping billions into AR, but they don't break it out in earnings reports, so no one talks about it.

There are lots of execution risks in Meta's VR strategy. Obviously, if no one ever wants their products for games, work, entertainment, or whatever else, then they will have incinerated an awful lot of money. But I think that's actually the unlikely scenario.

The quarterly losses are very large, but it's an entirely new product line with a very large potential market.

zenmaster106654• 3 years ago

People forget that stock buybacks also create a pool of equity for employee compensation, it isn't just about returning capital tax effectively

bboygravity2• 3 years ago

Or price discovery in US markets is completely broken. Could also explain it.

Mumbles something about perpetual FTDs, naked shorting, the biggest market maker also being a hedge fund (who donates many millions to corrupt politcians), tokenized securities that can be used as short locates and so on...

DiggyJohnson• 3 years ago

What’s the biggest market maker?

If you have any long form versions of this ranty comment, I’d be genuinely interested in reading it. Cheers

jcfrei• 3 years ago

On a yearly basis they are still down about 4% in revenue from advertising and apps and down 17% in the reality labs section. Their business is just shrinking less quickly than investors feared.

ripvanwinkle• 3 years ago

in constant currency they would be up about 4%. the biggest trend is revenue per ad was nearly offset by growth in number of ads - the latter is likely to hit its limit sooner than the former and that seems like the biggest risk to the business

loeg• 3 years ago

What does AH stand for? Thanks.

dagmx• 3 years ago

After hours , as in stock movement after the market has closed for the day.

marcyb5st• 3 years ago

After hours. Wall street is closed basically.

HDThoreaun5• 3 years ago

My only concern is that cost per ad was down 22% this quarter. They counteracted by showing 17% more ads on minimal user growth which seems likely to accelerate Facebook exodus.

trieste92• 3 years ago

If the media is talking about how Facebook peaked or is the next myspace, this is time to buy

Yeah same for FTX /s

Better to just not see what the media is saying period than go full contrarian

sicp-enjoyer9• 3 years ago

In FTX case it had already happened when the media reported. In fact, prior to the scandal most of the media about FTX was positive.

ulfw• 3 years ago

Then why fire so many people?

gnicholas• 3 years ago

Same for Netflix.

I followed as NFLX dropped, and it was definitely a media narrative before the drop was over. We don't know where things will shake out, of course, but it's not the case that everything is priced in by the time the media starts talking about it.

firstfewshells• 3 years ago

Should have loaded those shares a couple of months back, smh. Up 70%+ since Nov last year.

rvz2• 3 years ago

The death of Meta Platforms Inc. (Formerly Facebook Inc) has once again been greatly exaggerated.

Perhaps you should have bought the stock when it went below $90 rather than screaming about the price going to zero.

How things change in just several months. I have always expected the same: Business as usual [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32256465

nvarsj• 3 years ago

Seemed obvious to lots of people who live in reality.

There's definitely a weird echo chamber on HN that decries FB along the lines of "Oh no one I know uses it, therefore why does it exist", meanwhile 2bil+ people are using FB apps every day.

Always makes me laugh when I see those ridiculous statements - there's even one in the comments here!

MikusR• 3 years ago

Users of one social network complaining about another social network.

kerpotgh• 3 years ago

I’m just really happy how resilient the economy is at this point.

bilsbie• 3 years ago

How do they make all this money when everyone I know has stopped using it?

Other countries?

1123581321• 3 years ago

You don't know anyone on Instagram? That seems very unlikely. And yes, the United States only supplies a quarter of a billion of Facebook's/Instagram's three billion users.

mtoner23• 3 years ago

you are not the average american

xuki• 3 years ago

Because you don’t know everyone.

smith7018• 3 years ago

Instagram is an app and therefore can't have its ads (easily) blocked. Facebook is mostly used by older people that don't know about ad blockers.

charcircuit• 3 years ago

Facebook is an app too

gardenhedge3• 3 years ago

Is this why Reddit pushes people to its app?

mensetmanusman7• 3 years ago

Always remember that the US is like 4% of the world population.

peanuty1• 3 years ago

Their profit margin on international users is way, way lower than US and Canada.

gen22011• 3 years ago

They deliver more ads today than they have at any point in their history. That's a function of active users, and of their UX. The instagram/fb experience of today is not anything like it was 5 years ago -- there are a lot more ads.

At the same time, more people are "using" their family of apps in one way or another on a daily or monthly basis. These metrics entail all kinds of flaws, but ads delivered and ad impressions are the metric that explain the phenomenon you describe, more than net-new users.

That being said, yes, international expansion is a big deal for how they grow the "user" count metrics.

jchonphoenix• 3 years ago

What I've come to realize is that everyone likes to say they stopped using it, but the reality is that they actually do still use FB. They just aren't as active posting their own updates. But they are engaging in the platform, comments, etc. FBs got a long way to go before the golden goose is actually at risk.

Younger people not using FB though seems pretty real.

jay-barronville• 3 years ago

What I've come to realize is that everyone likes to say they stopped using it, but the reality is that they actually do still use FB. They just aren't as active posting their own updates.

You could be right, but I think it’s more so that our specific circles may actually have stopped using it while most folks, in general, remain users.

dcolkitt2• 3 years ago

Younger people not using FB though seems pretty real.

We've already gone through one cycle of "young people are abandoning Facebook" with millenials and Snapchat. And it turned out that the thesis of Snapchat as FB killer was widely overblown. Snapchat failed to really expand into other demos the way early Facebook did, not to mention a lot of those Millenials aged out of it and migrated to Instagram.

Now we're hearing the same story but with Gen Z and TikTok. But it's hard to see a compelling reason why TikTok will wind up a different story. Seems very unlikely that my kids pre-school will eventually wind up uploading to TikTok the way they do Facebook.

My guess is the youth vanguard will always use whatever the new hotness is in alternative social media platform, because keeping grownups out is the point. But Facebook (and Instagram) seem like they're firmly entrenched as the base layer of civil society.

HDThoreaun5• 3 years ago

They showed 17% more ads this quarter than last years 4Q. Reports of facebooks death are greatly exaggerated.

fdsjjfds3• 3 years ago

They showed approximately the same number of users an increased number of ads, and those ads were worth approximately the same amount less.

Tells me they are locked in a spiral of an increasingly awful user experience.

You'll note that revenue from advertising fell 1%

jraby32• 3 years ago

A lot of people may have stopped using Facebook.

But what about Instagram? WhatsApp? Oculus?

juve19963• 3 years ago

I'm seeing far more ads on instagram reels.

fknorangesite2• 3 years ago

What is it, exactly, that makes you think that "everyone you know" is in any way representative of the general population?

gen22011• 3 years ago

Question for folks here: what is the bull case for Meta remaining a growth stock, given the current regulatory environment and uncertainty around the medium-term prospects of VR as an "attention" category?

More concretely, what is the scenario for META going back to "good ol' days of" mid-20%, low-30% YoY quarterly revenue growth, given mounting regulatory and privacy barriers that are largely beyond their ability to exert influence/control?

Context is they're on a streak of 4 quarters of <10% YoY quarterly growth for the first time in their history. Last three quarters were basically air-balls (flat / slightly-negative).

lvl1023• 3 years ago

You know Meta has the best tech in terms of AI/ML right? They just need a new leadership focus to steer the company in the right direction. They literally have all the tools to lead in that area.

rcme3• 3 years ago

Do they? The LLM they released was much worse than GPT-3.

gen22011• 3 years ago

How does this concretely translate into a marginal $30bn/year in revenue?

Inverting the question, who would collectively pay $30bn/year to buy "AI/ML from Meta", assuming you're talking about a new product offering.

tukantje3• 3 years ago

Normally acquiring smaller companies would be the answer but that is no longer possible, it would seem.

They also couldn't diverge into finance.

Honestly, by this point, it could be that the stock is hit too hard, but I fail to see a long term bull case as things are today.

gen22011• 3 years ago

They're currently priced at 3.5x annualized revenue. If you assume they could capture 20% of that revenue consistently, that's 20x annualized profits (equivalent to 13ish years of profit on this basis).

To me, this seems close to the max price I'd value Meta, given the headwinds to growth they face.

The inability to grow via acquisition seems like a big hurdle -- that's what I was hinting at with "regulatory pressure".

To me, I think the bull case is that they come out with an Apple-tier-quality headset, thereby begetting and capturing the mainstream headset market from a data privacy point of view, and that this new market is additive or multiplicative to their core ads business, rather than cannibalizing (an idea that is, itself, suspect).

IDK. If I bought at $90 (which I didn't, somewhat foolishly in hindsight), I'd feel pretty comfortable selling at the current after-market price.

BbzzbB5• 3 years ago

They just won in court like two days ago against the FTC to go forward with Within's acquisition.

rcme3• 3 years ago

Why does it need to be a growth stock? It’s still pretty cheap even for a value stock.

gen22011• 3 years ago

I think the current after-market price ($180ish) pushes it out of the "value" category, at least for me (there's no hard science on this).

To me, $180ish prices-in some growth that I'm personally skeptical towards, hence my question! :)

deltree712• 3 years ago

Metaverse is a $20 Trillion market by 2035.

Only Apple and Meta are the true players who are all in. Even if Apple captures some high-end market, Meta has the opportunity to sweep the rest

ipsum2• 3 years ago

That's a ridiculous forecast.

gen22011• 3 years ago

Do you think Metaverse ad revenue will not cannibalize social media revenue, as people shift their attention from one to the other?

Or that Metaverse attention will somehow be 100x as valuable as social media attention (current global social media revenue is $200ishbn)?

chollida17• 3 years ago

Metaverse is a $20 Trillion market by 2035.

That's about the current US GDP.

curiousllama• 3 years ago

A few long term bull arguments:

- They have the worlds largest messaging platform (WhatsApp) that is basically unmonetized rn.

- They are one of 3-5 major players in AI. Amazon was one of the 3-5 largest internet companies... and then created AWS. (e.g., they released-then-unreleased a GPT3 clone before ChatGPT, because they got slammed in the press for ethics. doesn't mean they can't build a B2B business with it.)

- The regulatory landscape is shifting towards tech nationalism. Yea, there'll be regulation, but nationalism will limit the scope + create a moat against upstarts.

Recessions are great times to build new businesses - if you have cash on hand. They have cash.

qqtt• 3 years ago

It's not clear it's even possible to effectively monetize pure messaging platforms like WhatsApp - there aren't many successful examples of highly monetized chat apps. Chat is pretty much the hardest thing in all of social networking to monetize and there is no guarantee Facebook can effectively monetize WhatsApp without sabotaging its primary purpose (communication). IMO there is a reason WhatsApp is still basically unmonetized right now.

How does Facebook stand to monetize from AI? AWS and Google monetize through their cloud offerings, but Facebook went the library/framework route with PyTorch. That seems like a big question mark if they can capitalize on AI in some form outside of their own internal systems (like ad optimization and general monetization/product improvements, which everyone is doing at the same time).

They have a ton of cash, but can they effectively use it? They are burning a lot of it on VR which isn't catching on the way they envisioned. Facebook is at a point where they are already huge so to maintain 'growth stock' valuations they have to keep delivering quarter over quarter results that move the needle in the billions and billions of dollars. I don't see a compelling case for them to do that based on these pillars.

chaostheory2• 3 years ago

I still believe long term that XR will replace or augment our smart phones. Apple will make it socially acceptable and meta will capitalize on selling it to the mid to low end of the market.

2OEH8eoCRo0• 3 years ago

Almost 3 billion monthly active users and youngsters like their VR.

lanza• 3 years ago

My personal bet is that the tech giants are immune from US regulation. Hurting a tech giant just means that that market position goes to Asia, most likely China.

dcolkitt2• 3 years ago

At current price, Facebook doesn't have to remain a growth stock. It's trading at a 15 P/E multiple. For comparison Proctor and Gamble is trading at a 25 P/E, Coca Cola at 26 P/E, and Comcast at 33 P/E. For Facebook to go up (at least relative to prevailing American equity valuations), it just has to remain a blue chip marquee name and not go into terminal decline.

bubbleRefuge2• 3 years ago

The bigger story is that Federal Reserve Interest rate policy is stimulating rather than slowing down the economy as desired. Higher interest rates is higher interest payments into the economy by the government which is the deficit spending. The problem with it is that its very regressive. So folks holding large amounts of cash are benefitting from the added interest income. In 100 years history will judge these guys as clueless buffoons. Hitting the accelerator pedal rather than the brakes.

lokar• 3 years ago

Do you work at the central bank of turkey?

bubbleRefuge2• 3 years ago

better yet check argentina.

jaboutboul• 3 years ago

Does this mean the tech layoffs will stop now?

darkwizard42• 3 years ago

I don't think so. I think this might be just another signal to other profitable companies that tightening your belt (even though you are making absurd money) is rewarded. Tight focus by Meta and better than expected performance of increased ad load has paid off.

retrocryptid• 3 years ago

No one seems to be talking about thr $40B stock buyback authorization just announced. I'm neither a fan nor a detractor of META, but think with eps growth so negative and such high losses, perhaps stock price increases are partially due to the promise of buybacks from an elastic market.

It's an absolutely great idea if they can get to real eps growth over the next 3 or 6 months. I would flip bearish if they can't get to positive eps growth in 6 months.

I don't have any META in my portfolio, just making an observation.

HDThoreaun5• 3 years ago

Meta has always been immensely profitable. It was hit this year because investors didn’t like how hard mark was going into the reality labs stuff and that also reminded them that he can do whatever the hell he wants, including making no money for extended periods of time. Their recent layoffs and this reports continued capex cuts show that mark is committed to keeping his investors happy which is why we’re seeing the bounce back.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 3 years ago

Meta's Dreams Have Become A Metaverse Nightmare

https://analyticsindiamag.com/metas-dreams-have-become-a-met...

Meta Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Results

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