There could be even more upside in store for Meta Platforms following its latest quarterly results, according to Loop Capital. The firm reiterated its buy rating on the Facebook owner and hiked its price target to $888, which reflects about 38% upside from Thursday’s closing level. Its previous price target was $695, per FactSet. “While our pre-quarter checks had pointed to resilience, our expectation that a drop in spending intensity from China-based advertisers would flatten revenue growth was a misread,” analyst Rob Sanderson wrote in a Thursday note. “This large spending cohort has backed off (with some geographic reallocation) but AI-driven performance gains across the platform are more than an offset.” “We continue to see Meta as the best non-hardware example of tangible, right-now beneficiary of AI and think the stock will outperform the ‘mag-7’ peer group this year,” the analyst continued. “Despite a meaningful valuation disparity, we still encourage long-term growth managers to move away from Google and into Meta.” META 1M mountain META, 1-month This comes as Meta shares have jumped more than 17% month to date on a better-than-expected report for the first quarter . The move higher puts Meta’s year-to-date gain at about 10%. Meta also increased its capital expenditures outlook for 2025 to reflect more investments in data centers for artificial intelligence. While Sanderson noted that the company’s core AI investments have been constrained by capacity as of late, he noted that new AI datacenter capacity has begun coming online. “While core AI is already delivering measurable results, management views this as an early-stage opportunity with a multi-year roadmap to further enhance system performance,” the analyst wrote. “Massive infrastructure investments, larger than any hyperscale build for internal consumption, is allowing Meta to extend its competitive advantage over smaller rivals.” Most analysts on Wall Street hold a similarly bullish view on Meta. LSEG data shows that 64 of 72 have given the stock a strong buy or buy rating. Only six have a hold rating. Meta has an average target of about $703, implying more than 9% upside potential.
