With shares going for more than 38.0 times trailing price-to-earnings (P/E), I'm personally in no rush to chase the stock, especially with quarterly earnings just under a week away. That said, some big-name analysts have been bold enough to stay in the bull camp. And that's despite the hot, seemingly overheated run, the relatively stretched multiple, and uncertainties clouding the future of AI.
Fueling upside, Meta ( NASDAQ: META) is up about 10% in premarket, or by $63.50 a share, to $732.20. All after the company posted EPS of $8.88 on revenue of $59.89 billion. Those came in above estimates for $8.23 and $58.59 billion. Meta also issued strong guidance, expecting first-quarter sales of $53.5 billion to $56.5 billion, which is above estimates of $51.41 billion.
Just yesterday, markets celebrated the latest quarter-point cut from the Federal Reserve, which lowered rates to a range of 3.5% to 3.75%. The central bank also announced that it would again purchase short-term bonds, thereby driving down short-term yields. It also removed language that the labor market "remained low." That could mean the central bank may be more likely to ease to support the jobs market and not care as much about sticky inflation.
When the company reported Q2 earnings on July 31, its financial performance was overshadowed by a bleak outlook, with guidance weaker than Wall Street's forecast. Amazon beat on earnings and revenue, with EPS coming in at $1.68 versus expectations of $1.33 and revenue of $167.7 billion versus expectations of $162.09 billion. Revenue from AWS was $30.87 billion versus expectations of $30.8 billion, while advertising revenue registered $15.7 billion versus expectations of $14.9 billion.
