You pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus.
-- Uncle Warren

13 times earnings for a company that has 1 of 3 people on the planet using their products on a daily basis with the share of advertising on the internet still increasing. Revenues continuing to grow in the mid teens with a 30% net income margin. A vision and plan for how the company participates in the future of the internet that can currently be funded by free cash flow, and 44 billion in cash to buy themselves a seat at the table for the future of the internet should viable competitors arise.

I think there's an adequate margin of safety at this price.

Meta will become as dependent on factors beyond their control as the news outlets were to tweaks in the Meta algorithms.

Sell. Any comparison to Apple - maker of desirable and quality products, PHYSICAL PRODUCTS......or to Amazon - geniuses of regulatory capture and audience capture - is simply false.

There is no physical product. And do you trust them to nurture demand for one?
There are many high variance externalities.
The brand name is awful.
Regulators tend to hate them (with justification)
ALL virtual reality and adjacent investment scenarios have turned to dog turd thus far. Reason is people don't like it. This is because of human nature...what happened to SimCity ect? FAD

I've been out of this company for many years. Their complete disregard for user privacy, inability to adequately police content, and contribution to the degradation of society has turned me off. Watch the documentary on Netflix called The Social Dilemma for more insight.

Having said that.....the fact that everyone seems so down on them seems like a good reason to buy lol. These things have a way of going the exact opposite way as the narrative the short-sellers have created for them.

billikenag said:

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You pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus.
-- Uncle Warren

13 times earnings for a company that has 1 of 3 people on the planet using their products on a daily basis with the share of advertising on the internet still increasing. Revenues continuing to grow in the mid teens with a 30% net income margin. A vision and plan for how the company participates in the future of the internet that can currently be funded by free cash flow, and 44 billion in cash to buy themselves a seat at the table for the future of the internet should viable competitors arise.

I think there's an adequate margin of safety at this price.

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Bingo. Facebook is an ad company with over 3 Billion active subscribers amongst all of their platforms. It's a good deal at this price and there's no question

Deputy Travis Junior said:

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I said that the metaverse is probably 10 years away from broad adoption, not that the metaverse is 10 years away AND Meta, with its big, first-mover spending, will be the winner at that point. Wouldn't be surprised to see a plucky startup enter the market in 7-8 years and build a superior product.

Basically, Meta is funding all the research and tripping over all the landmines, but since maturation is so far away, they have no guarantee of reaping the rewards.

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That's why pass-thru is going to be crucial imo.

Medaggie said:

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One lesson I have learned is listen to the tea leaves and not what media says. I didn't learn this lesson when young and missed out on some big opportunities.

The young people will drive what is bought in future. My 13 yr old daughter clamors for social media including tick tock, instagram, snap. I said no to these but asked her why not facebook too. She said that is for old people and none of her friends uses it.

Unless facebook changes, it will start to die.

Even middle age people are starting to not use it and Zuck is evil.

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Facebook isn't dying. They are making crap tons of money and their margins are outstanding. Social media isn't just teenagers. Facebook has the entire world.

The future of Meta is not MySpace why?

Are they making desire-inducing physical products?
Have they reached regulatory capture? Or are they intensely hated by many in DC not on the payroll?
Are they unduly influenced by foreign intelligence, so that a FedGov hammer can be brought down?
How is the online ad business going?
How have the many VR fads done these past few decades?

I'm out.

BTW, why the name change?
Narrative change.

Remember the MANY scandals in the year preceding it? I do.

You bought in at the top of a generational bull market that will take years to resolve to the downside.

The good news is there's almost always an asset class about to be or in a bull market. Just have to expand horizons.

I think Meta is a good bet, financially. I just won't be buying it individually because I would be overtly supporting something I do not believe in and is a detriment to society.

Having said that, I obviously have it as part of some of my fund investments where it's a bit more difficult to finitely make choices.

Dill-Ag13 said:

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I don't see how they're any different from Peloton or Netflix. A nifty product that's new and ground-breaking that ultimately within 5-10 years is in a highly competitive market and has no true differentiation. The world has moved on to TikTok…

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Pure speculation value, not a buy and hold investment

Bump.

What a difference a year makes. A good example of news following the stock and not the stock following the news.

Yep - glad I held it. Made some money on protective puts on the way down, too.

Full disclosure: I knew next to nothing about the company when I bought the stock the day of their IPO in 2012, and I don't think I know much more about it now.

I do think they had such a flurry of negative factors hit them last year that it is a testament to their survivability to be where they are today.

I like to occasionally buy certain stocks (i.e. META, COIN, BABA, PLTR) as hedges against my own personal "unknowns", and this one fit the bill then, and maybe still does. Plus, it's in my after-tax account, so I am in no hurry to pay Uncle Sam his share of my 664% gain.