Meta Platforms, Inc. META is a well-known social media company with top apps like Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. Meta’s shares surged this year mainly due to its focus on artificial intelligence (AI). Now, let’s determine if it’s a good time to stay invested in Meta.
Meta Stock Rallies 20 Sessions Straight
Meta stock hasn’t finished in the red in any of the trading sessions in February. Instead, the magnificent 7-stock notched 20 successive days of gains on Friday. Meta had only five losing sessions this year and has never had a losing session since Donald Trump became the 47th U.S. President.
So far this year, Meta has been the best performer among the magnificent seven stocks, up 25.8%. Meta stock soared to a record high of $736.67 on Friday, a 600% increase from its fall 2022 low when the Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to tame 40-year high inflation.
Meta to Pour Billions Into AI
Meta’s clear intention to make a mark in the high-growth potential AI market has bolstered investors’ sentiment and relentlessly helped its stock price scale upward. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently stated that the company intends to spend $60 billion to $65 billion in AI infrastructure and strengthen its position amongst rivals like Microsoft Corporation MSFT, its partner OpenAI and Alphabet Inc. GOOGL.
Meta plans to invest in AI-powered humanoid robots for physical tasks, while Zuckerberg expects Llama 4 to be the most widely used advanced large language model (LLM) this year. The company’s highly personalized AI assistant, Meta AI, is set to assist 1 billion users this year, and a new 2-gigawatt data center in Louisiana is in the works.
Meta is one of the primary buyers of NVIDIA Corporation’s NVDA chips and aims to have 1.3 million graphics processing units by the end of the year. Meta is intensifying its AI development by replacing underperforming employees and recruiting new talent to lead the AI competition.
Consider Keeping Meta Stock?
Meta’s AI initiatives, particularly with Llama 4, hold potential for long-term growth due to its agentic capabilities in addressing complex issues for users. Secondly, the company’s AI engineering agent can compete with a mid-level engineer, a ground-breaking innovation that can bolster the stock price. Finally, Meta has over 3.3 billion loyal worldwide users across its apps, surpassing rivals and offering the company a wide moat. This gives Meta a strong position for future stock outperformance.
Brokers also assume that the Meta stock will jump, raising the average short-term price target to $743.55 from the last closing price of $736.67 and setting the highest target at $935, an upside of 26.9%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Investors, thus, should continue holding Meta stock for its growth potential and consistent dividend payouts. Meta has a dividend yield of 0.27%. META’s payout ratio presently sits at 8% of earnings. Check Meta Platforms’ dividend history here.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Meta currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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