META; La Cucaracha Que Simplemente No Muere

It seems like Meta is the company that just doesn’t die. The past two years have been tough for Meta, they made a $36 billion dollar investment in the Metaverse, betting on it to be the next big thing and even changing the entire name of its parent company and stock ticker which showed his devotion to moving the company to be the forefront of the metaverse.

However, unfortunately, the Metaverse ended up being a fad for those particularly interested in that niche. In broader terms, it was to be at the forefront of the Virtual Reality (VR) space and its mass adoption. This was overtaken by the wildfire that is general-purpose Artificial Intelligence and CHATGPT. In addition, major privacy changes made by Apple affected its ability to advertise to targeted customers, rising interest rates and also the rapid rise of its competitor TikTok all added to the thousand cuts that aimed to end the company as its share price fell by more than 60% in 2022. However, as of the 2nd of February alone, after the reporting of their earnings, the shares rose by 20%. As of Q4 of 2023 its shares rose 69% and the earnings per share was up 79% YoY from the previous year as its net income more than tripled and its revenue rose 25%. They just REFUSE to die, Ellos estan saliendo a pelear.

According to Zuckerberg “Meta’s success, though, required paring down. It reduced operating expenses in 2023 by laying off some 20,000 people, slashing its headcount by 22%. It spent $2.5 billion on “facilities consolidation,” or reducing its office footprint. The changes were part of a plan to make the company “leaner” so it would be better able to weather volatility over the next five to 10 years,” For the cherry on top, they state that for the first time ever they would be paying 50c for every share in dividend, this added $200 billion to its market cap and quietly pushed it into and above the trillion-dollar valuation at $1.2 trillion. Find the full earnings report here. [https://www.cnbc.com]