Quick Read – META beat Q1 EPS by 57%, yet shares trade at 14x forward earnings, which represents a deep discount for a business growing earnings 30%+. – Wall Street sees 40% upside at a $829 consensus target, but an internal model’s $864 base case suggests analysts are still…
tching up. – Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) delivered one of the cleanest quarterly beats from a mega-cap this year, yet shares are sliding. Q1 2026 EPS came in at $10.44 versus the $6.66 consensus, a 56.79% beat, and revenue hit $56.31 billion (up 33.1% YoY)
Mark Zuckerberg told investors, “We had a milestone quarter with strong momentum across our apps and the release of our first model from Meta Superintelligence Labs.” And yet shares trade at $593, down on the year. With 2.196 billion shares outstanding, a $2 trillion market cap demands roughly $910 a share. Can Meta reach there by 2027?
What’s Holding Meta Back The bear case is straightforward: capex is eating the story. Management raised full-year 2026 capex guidance to $125 to $145 billion, up from the prior $115 to $135 billion range. That spending, mostly Meta Superintelligence Labs infrastructure, collides with a $4.03 billion Reality Labs operating loss and ongoing EU Digital Markets Act enforcement plus US youth-related litigation in 2026.