Meta Platforms Inc. (META) PT Raised to $825 at JPMorgan

JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth raised the price target on Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META) to $825.00 (from $800.00) while maintaining a Overweight rating.

The analyst comments "We came into 4Q earnings emphasizing 3 things Meta needed to do to drive the stock higher: 1) show the path to 2026 revenue growth well into the 20's% range; 2) emphasize financial guardrails around operating income and EPS growth, and/or positive FCF; & 3) provide guideposts on LLM progress and the path to a frontier model. We think Meta did at least the first 2 of these—or maybe 2.5—while still leaving plenty of questions on reaching the LLM frontier. Strong upside to the 1Q revenue outlook with growth pushing into the 30's% suggests 2026 revenue that offsets the outlook for total expenses ($162B- $169B) and capex ($115B-$135B), both above already elevated expectations. We believe 4Q earnings could put Meta back on track toward earning the right to invest, as evidenced by the outsized revenue growth in 1Q. Importantly, Meta continues to drive strong AI ad improvements across engagement and monetization as it stacks new products and looks forward to incorporating LLMs and rebooting ranking and recommendation models in the medium-term. Meta also established bottom-line guardrails w/operating income growth in 2026, and Reality Labs operating losses similar this year to last year, representing a peak in 2026. On model development, we believe Meta tempered expectations for a frontier LLM in 1H26, instead emphasizing first models that will be "good," showing the trajectory toward the frontier over the course of the year. Mark also emphasized that Meta is seeing a major AI acceleration with improvement in agents that will unlock new products and change how people work, with 2026 a big year for delivering personal superintelligence. Meta shares traded up 7% after-market, but we do expect some pushback that could make those gains tough to maintain. Our revenue and expenses both shift higher, but our GAAP EPS comes down 3-4% in 2026/2027, partly due to removing share repurchases and incorporating the 4Q debt raise. Meta indicated that 1Q26 revenue growth will represent peak growth for the year, and we project deceleration through the quarters, particularly given tougher comps in 2H. Our 2026 FCF projection remains modestly in the black at positive $5B, but even as the company expects to self-finance its infra investments this year, we believe it could shift to net debt over the next few years. Lastly, timing for a frontier model could be pushed out, though we recognize the industry continues to rapidly innovate, w/heavy anticipation for Blackwell-trained models over the next few months. We maintain our Overweight rating & raise our Dec 2026 PT to $825 based on 26x 2027E GAAP EPS of $31.51."

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