Meta Platforms (FB) Stock News and Forecast: Where is Facebook parent's bottom?
- Meta Platforms stock dropped 6.3% on Monday to $187.
- FB shares have continued to drop since early February earnings call.
- FB stock is down 44% year-to-date.
Meta Platforms (FB), the owner of Facebook, Whatsapp, and Instagram, has risen 1.5% to $190 on Tuesday after Monday's dismal performance. FB stock closed down 6.3% on Monday to $187.47, breaking the psychologically important $200 level. The social media giant is down 44% this year and 52% since its all-time high in August 2021. Now the only question is: where is the bottom for FB stock?
Meta Platforms Stock News: Russian Facebook down
Russia cut off access to Facebook on March 4 after the social media giant restricted access to Russian state-owned media. Roskomnadzor, the Russian media regulator, said that Facebook failed to respond to its messages after Mark Zuckerberg's company restricted the accounts of the Zvezda TV channel, RIA Novosti and internet sites Lenta.ru and Gazeta.ru.
On Tuesday, Piper Sandler cut its price target on Meta Platforms stock to $240 from $301 but kept its "outperform" rating on the shares. The firm said the poor performance may continue until August.
Analysts have been negative in the short term on FB since the Q4 earnings call one month ago. Wedbush's Dan Ives said that getting back to a growth path would be difficult. Mark Mahaney of Evercore ISI said in early February, "Shares are probably dead money at this level of growth for at least the next three months." Take your pick: not much may change until May or August.
FB key statistics
| Market Cap | $544 billion |
| Price/Earnings | 14 |
| Price/Sales | 4 |
| Price/Book | 4 |
| Enterprise Value | $511 billion |
| Operating Margin | 40% |
| Profit Margin |
33% |
| 52-week high | $384.33 |
| 52-week low | $187.28 |
| Short Interest | 1% |
| Average Wall Street Rating and Price Target | Buy, $331.09 |
Meta Platforms Forecast: So many bottoms to choose from
FB stock has been trending down since September of last year. When it dropped 26% the day after its Q4 earnings call in early February, the largest one-day market cap loss in stock market history, observers did not think it would keep declining, but here we are. Breaking $200 by such a large margin was key to showing FB's future, which is a point further lower in the short term.
There seem to be three possible levels for support: $173, $160 and $137. $173 gains adherents from acting as occasional support in June 2019 and August 2018. Before that, it was resistance in the summer of 2017. $160 acted as support in January through March of 2019 and then again in June of that year. $137 was low at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meta Platforms stock will only be seen in a bullish light when it rebreaks above $245, which is probably a long way off.
FB 1-week chart
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Author
Clay Webster
FXStreet
Clay Webster grew up in the US outside Buffalo, New York and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He began investing after college following the 2008 financial crisis.
