#meta-platforms

#meta-platforms

Meta Platforms Inc. convinced a federal appeals court to certify a question about whether its terms of service and community standards created an obligation for the company to combat scam advertisements. Whether the terms of service and community standards impose a legally enforceable obligation on Meta is a question with substantial grounds for differing opinions, the US District Court for the Northern District of California said Thursday.

Meta Platforms didn't have a bad 2025, as its stock rose around 13%. Still, that trails the S&P 500 , as it delivered 16% gains in 2025. However, Meta could have handily outperformed the market if its third quarter earnings report hadn't been so poorly received by the market. That caused the stock to drop in October, and shares haven't recovered since.

A lot of mega-cap tech titans are ending off 2025 on a high note with big acquisitions. Meta Platforms ( NASDAQ:META) joined in the year-end deal-making spree by buying up AI agent startup Manus in a deal reportedly worth over $2 billion. Undoubtedly, Manus is an incredible technology that's already gained quite the following, with around $100 million in annual recurring revenue.

Meta Platforms has demonstrated a tendency for swift rallies. The stock has experienced increases of over 50% within a span of two months on six separate occasions, particularly in 2012 and 2023. Moreover, it has risen more than 30% within two months on eleven occasions, with significant surges in 2013 and 2025. If historical trends continue, forthcoming catalysts could propel Meta's shares to impressive new heights, benefiting investors with substantial returns.

Last year, Meta had to reckon with an ugly conclusion about its Chinese advertising customers: They were defrauding Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp users worldwide. Though China's authoritarian government bans use of Meta social media by its citizens, Beijing lets Chinese companies advertise to foreign consumers on the globe-spanning platforms. As a result, Meta's advertising business was thriving in China, ultimately reaching over $18 billion in annual sales in 2024, more than a tenth of the company's global revenue. But Meta calculated that about 19% of that money - more than $3 billion - was coming from ads for scams, illegal gambling, pornography and other banned content, according to internal Meta documents reviewed by Reuters.

Stanley Druckenmiller of Duquesne Family Office bought 76,100 shares of Meta Platforms and 102,200 shares of Alphabet. They collectively account for 2% of his portfolio. Israel Englander of Millennium Management purchased 793,500 shares of Meta Platforms and 2.2 million shares of Alphabet. They are now his eighth- and fifth-largest holdings, respectively, excluding options.

This year, one of the better performers among the Magnificent 7 had been Meta Platforms Inc. ( NASDAQ: META). But its third-quarter earnings report raised investor concerns about the company's massive capital spending on artificial intelligence initiatives. In addition, a report from Reuters suggested that a significant portion of Meta's revenue comes from fraudulent ads. The stock is down 14.8% since the quarterly report was released.

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) has received an updated outlook from Evercore ISI, with analyst Mark Mahaney reaffirming his 'Outperform' rating and citing a strengthening core business along with expanding long-term monetization opportunities. To this end, Mahaney assigned a price target of $875 for the American technology giant. The value suggests that META stock would need to rally nearly 37% from its last closing price of $640.

Meta Platforms and Amazon could surpass the current combined market value of Nvidia and Palantir by the end of the decade. Over the past year, Nvidia shares have advanced 33%, bringing its market value to $4.3 trillion. Meanwhile, Palantir Technologies shares has advanced 155%, bringing its market value to $395 billion. In aggregate, the companies are worth about $4.7 trillion. Apple could certainly surpass that figure within five years, but I also have confidence in Meta Platforms and Amazon .

Two U.S. senators are pushing the heads of the Federal Trade Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission to probe Meta Platforms after a recent Reuters investigation revealed the social media giant earned $16 billion from advertising scams and banned goods in 2024. A letter from Senators Josh Hawley (R‑MO) and Richard Blumenthal (D‑CT) to the agencies calls for a full investigation into Meta, pointing out that internal documents show Meta earned about 10% of its annual revenue from scam and fraudulent ads last year.

Meta is the largest social media company in the world, boasting close to 4 billion monthly active users worldwide. The firm's "Family of Apps," its core business, consists of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. End users can leverage these applications for a variety of different purposes, from keeping in touch with friends to following celebrities and running digital businesses for free. Meta packages customer data, gleaned from its application ecosystem and sells ads to digital advertisers.

With apps surging and receding, chasing one craze and moving on from others, and adding new features with each passing year, the FTC has understandably struggled to fix the boundaries of Meta's product market. Even so, it continues to insist that Meta competes with the same old rivals it has for the last decade, that the company holds a monopoly among that small set, and that it maintained that monopoly through anticompetitive acquisitions,