Meta Platforms rises as Piper cuts price target, reiterates overweight rating
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Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:FB) got a lift on Tuesday even as Piper Sandler analyst Thomas Champion cut his price target on the Mark Zuckerberg-led company's stock, noting that its advertising issues are likely to continue for the next several months.
Champion lowered his price target to $240 a share from $301, but reiterated his overweight rating on Meta's (FB) stock. Champion said Meta's "dismal" first-quarter guidance was a result of a number of issues, including difficult pricing comparisons and increased spending as the company transitions to being a metaverse-first business.
"The data suggests challenging post [App Tracking Transparency] compares continue till August," Champion wrote in a note to clients, adding that March and April already look "particularly onerous."
Meta's (FB) shares rose early and remained up by more than 4% as trading progressed, Tuesday.
Champion also pointed out that negatives to impressions include slowing daily active user growth, the re-opening of the global economy and more users shifting to Reels, which currently monetize at a lower rate than the company's other products.
Earlier this month, Morgan Stanley also cut its price target on Meta Platforms (FB), citing headwinds for monetization on Reels.
On Tuesday, Meta (FB) Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg spoke about the war between Russia and Ukraine, saying in an interview that no two countries led by women "would ever go to war."
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Part bathroom wall and part wet Tee-shirt contest, it carries the stigmata of an adolescent craze and, like all crazes, its day will pass.
Yes, I know it is humongous and world-influencing; it has made Zuckerberg a multibillionaire whose money and power corrupt elections and warp society. Many millionaires follow in his wake. World leaders wait patiently for an audience with him, and the houses of Congress are hushed as he speaks.
But still, Facebook is merely a place where people can boast about themselves and fling crap at others. Still, Zuckerberg is at bottom merely a self-regarding manchild who lives in a fantasy world, albeit one fueled by vast amounts of money.
And he now has decided to once again transform the poussy-meter he developed in his college days, this time into a cybernetic dream world that will contain the entire world's population, with himself as the Puppetmaster. His dream is to make reality as boring and obsolete as Facebook made newspapers and billboards. He will be Meta God, and all the billions of computer generated alter egos within Meta will be His Creation.Talk about yer sexability there, eh Meathead?
