DiscoverGold
3 주 전
Options traders are blasting META and MSFT
By: Schaeffer's Investment Research | October 31, 2024
• How 2 Big Tech Titans Are Faring After Earnings
• Shares of Meta Platforms and Microsoft are moving lower
Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META) and Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) are reeling after their highly anticipated earnings reports. While the former met Wall Street's estimates, user numbers for the third quarter came up short. Meanwhile, though the latter beat fiscal first-quarter expectations, its revenue growth outlook missed the mark.
META was last seen down 2.2% at $578.67, pivoting lower after yesterday's attempt to conquer its Oct. 7, record high of $602.95. The 40-day moving average looks poised to contain additional losses, however, and longer term, the shares still boast an 85% year-over-year lead.
MSFT is down 5.3% to trade at $409.45 at last glance, after yesterday running into a ceiling at the $440 rally that also capped price action in mid-September. The security is on track for its biggest single-day percentage loss since October 2022, but still sports a 9.5% lead for 2024.
Options traders have been quick to the trigger. META has seen 161,000 calls and 126,000 puts exchanged so far today, which is four times the intraday average volume. The weekly 11/1 600-strike call is the most popular, where new positions are being opened. MSFT has seen 198,000 calls and 111,000 puts cross the tape -- three times the volume typically seen at this point -- with the most activity at the 400-strike put.
Read Full Story »»»
DiscoverGold
DiscoverGold
4 주 전
AAPL vs. META: This Is the Better Mega-Cap Tech Stock to Buy
By: 24/7 Wall St. | October 25, 2024
It’s no secret that mega-cap tech stocks are where many investors spend a disproportionate amount of their attention right now. That’s for good reason – these stocks are the key reason why markets continue higher, given their weighting and importance to the overall economy.
I’m going to do a key comparison of two so-called Magnificent 7 tech darlings here. These are two companies that have the potential to move the market with a big valuation swing on an intraday level. Accordingly, I do think it’s important to pay attention to what this consumer discretionary giant and social media kingpin are up to.
Let’s do a compare and contrast with two of my favorite long-term holdings.
Key Points About This Article:
• Apple and Meta are two of the most recognizable American brands, and among the best companies in the world.
• Let’s do a compare and contrast to see how each of these companies stack up to each other on a number of metrics.
Apple (AAPL)
Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) certainly faced challenges in 2024, including an antitrust lawsuit and slowing iPhone sales in China. However, its stock still rose 20%, just lagging the performance of the overall S&P 500 index. Early in the year, Apple lagged peers in AI but introduced Apple Intelligence in June, bringing AI features to select devices, including the iPhone 15 Pro and upcoming iPhone 16. With these features set for limited release soon, Apple’s Oct. 31 earnings report will reveal whether iPhone sales have improved.
Of course, much of the story around Apple of late has been tied to AI. Most companies are announcing their visions for how they’re going to integrate AI into their products. In September, Apple launched Apple Intelligence, a suite of AI tools for iPhones, iPads, and Macs. These features enable users to write and summarize texts, edit photos, and generate personalized images, with enhanced privacy by limiting data usage to specific requests. Siri also received an AI-driven upgrade for better natural language understanding. These new tools are expected to boost device sales, raise prices, and increase high-margin services revenue through the App Store.
The question is whether these AI advancements will lead to durable and sustainable revenue and earnings growth acceleration moving forward. Personally, I’m not 100% sure that will be the case. But with 2.2 billion devices in use, Apple is well-positioned to capitalize on this AI growth, and there’s a reason why Wall Street remains bullish on this name. Indeed, any investor that’s sold Apple short over really any time frame over the past two decades has been killed – it’s hard to make a bet that this time will be different.
Meta Platforms (META)
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) is perhaps best known as the parent company of social media giants Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. The company earns its revenue primarily by selling ads, with user engagement driving profits. Like Apple, Meta is looking to build on its portfolio of world-class offerings to leverage AI to boost engagement. If users can see value in these AI tools, they may stay engaged longer, and lead to more ad revenue for the company.
Meta’s thinking is that AI tools will be able to benefit businesses looking to launch ads as well. With the launch of Meta AI, the company is looking to utilize its AI virtual assistant to help consumers find what they need. But the company is also working on its next iteration of this technology with its Business AI, which aims to equip merchants with AI agents to handle customer queries and sales, unlocking new revenue streams.
Meta’s AI, powered by its Llama large language model (LLM), demands significant computing capacity. Developing Llama 3.1 required 16,000 GPUs, primarily from Nvidia. Meta is now working on Llama 4, expected to need 160,000 GPUs. CEO Mark Zuckerberg aims to bring 600,000 GPUs online by late 2024, positioning Llama 4 as an industry benchmark but at a high cost, reflecting Meta’s long-term AI ambitions.
From a growth perspective, and the ability to truly create top and bottom-line impacts from its AI integrations, Meta is certainly an intriguing pick here. Ever since Zuckerberg started focusing on efficiency, the market has been bulled up on this name. I’m thinking this perspective is likely to continue for some time, with Meta being a clear winner over the long-term.
The Verdict
In my view, Meta is the likely winner over the medium-term, for a number of reasons.
First, I much prefer the company’s current valuation multiple relative to its growth rate. Apple is currently valued at roughly 35-times sales with flat or negative growth seen in most quarters over the past two years. Meta, on the other hand, is growing nicely at a multiple of just 28-times earnings. I get the premium multiple the market is assigning to Apple due to its brand value, but that’s a little too steep of a premium to pay right now, in my view.
Secondly, I do think if a recession does hit, that Apple will be far more impacted than Meta. Social media activity actually surged during the pandemic, and companies raced to add more advertising to social media platforms as folks were stuck at home scrolling their phones. And while stimulus checks did allow Apple to stave off an even greater earnings decline, it’s true that even some higher-income consumers are feeling stretched. That’s not a place I’d prefer to be if we do see a recession play out.
I think Meta is the better value pick, and the safer pick, right now. But to each their own.
Read Full Story »»»
DiscoverGold
DiscoverGold
1 월 전
Meta Platforms (META) Price Prediction and Forecast 2025-2030
By: 24/7 Wall St. | October 14, 2024
Formerly known as Facebook, Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ: META) is now a household name because of the foundational success it experienced in social media. But it has been over a decade since its IPO on May 18, 2012,
As the only company in the ‘Magnificent Seven’ that has yet to undergo a stock split, an investor who purchased $1000.00 worth of META stock on the day it went public at $38.00 per share would now be sitting on an investment worth $15506.05, good for a gain of 1450.61%.
But since its IPO date, a lot has changed. For starters, on Feb. 1, 2024, the company announced — alongside authorizing a $50 billion stock buyback — that shares of META would begin paying a dividend. And while its current yield of 0.34% may not seem like much, at its current price, that equates to $0.50 per share quarterly, or $2.00 per share annualized.
META is the dominant player in the social media landscape but it is now branching out more broadly into tech, and specifically, the artificial intelligence (AI) space. It is the latter that the company is most heavily investing in now, and for that reason, it is also the primary driver of 24/7 Wall Street price predictions and forecasts for 2025-2030...
Read Full Story »»»
DiscoverGold
Hot Features
프리미엄
브라질 증권 거래소, NASDAQ, NYSE, AMEX, LSE 등 주요 거래소에서의 다양한 실시간 주식 시세를 모니터링합니다.
glenngroove
2 일 전
Bountiful_Harvest
3 일 전
Big Momma
3 주 전
BottomBounce
1 월 전
Tesla Trillionaire
2 월 전
Monksdream
3 월 전
