Topline
Meta stock soared to a fresh 52-week high Thursday after receiving yet another notable analyst upgrade thanks to the launch of its Twitter competitor Threads.
Key Facts
Shares of the Facebook and Instagram parent rose as much as 2% to above $316 on Thursday, hitting their highest level since last February.
Meta stock is up 7% since launching Threads last Wednesday, adding some $63 billion in market value.
Sparking Thursday’s rally, Cowen analysts upgraded their rating for the stock from a hold to a buy, upping Meta’s price target by nearly 60% from $220 to $345.
In addition to lauding cost-cutting measures across the company and pointing to positive ad spending prospects across Meta’s platforms, Cowen’s John Blackledge forecasted Meta should pull in $5 billion in revenue from Threads next year in a base-case scenario.
Cowen is one of nine firms to upgrade its price target for Meta after it debuted Threads, according to FactSet data; among those more bullish on the company is Global Equities Research, which set a $400 price target for Meta last week.
A $400 share price would be the highest in Meta’s history and send its market capitalization from about $800 billion to just over $1 trillion, making it one of just seven trillion-dollar companies in the world.
Crucial Quote
Meta is “the premier social advertising platform” thanks to its “combination of reach, relevance, social context and engagement,” according to Blackledge. Meta brought in $28.1 billion in revenue during the first three months of this year. That compares to $6.7 billion for YouTube during the same period and $1.1 billion for Twitter during 2022’s second quarter, its last public earnings report.
Key Background
Meta shares declined more than 75% from late 2021 to late last year as investors disapproved of multibillion-dollar quarterly losses for the company’s metaverse division long touted by CEO Mark Zuckerberg (hence the name change from Facebook to Meta). This year, Meta is one of the best-performing stocks on the market after smashing estimates for its top and bottom lines. Threads’ rollout coincided with growing frustration about Twitter’s direction under its new billionaire owner Elon Musk. The rival social media billionaires, each among the 10 richest men in the world, have been preparing for a supposed mixed martial arts brawl to settle their differences.
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