Meta: Trading Idea closing
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The earnings season is coming to an end
The second-quarter earnings season in the US is slowly drawing to a close: Cisco Systems will release its latest figures this week, followed by Home Depot, Deere, and Walmart, which will all publish their earnings reports during the week beginning August 17, and Nvidia’s report is due on August 26. Among European companies, E.ON and RWE, among others, will report this week, while among Hungarian companies, AutoWallis will publish its latest figures on August 25.
Gen Digital: Stable Results and Stronger Forecasts
Gen Digital’s earnings report once again delivered results that exceeded expectations, while management raised its full-year forecast for the fourth consecutive quarter, further reinforcing confidence in the company’s growth trajectory. Given the stock’s low valuation, it is particularly encouraging that the company continues to achieve stable growth even after the base effect of the MoneyLion acquisition has run its course. In addition, products based on artificial intelligence are showing increasing user activity, suggesting that, in the long term, AI supports rather than threatens the company’s business model, although intensifying competition in the cybersecurity market continues to require ongoing development expenditures. Gen Digital shares remain on our Equity Top pick List.
In early July we sent a Trading Idea related to Meta shares, as we believed that several announcements had been made that could positively influence investor sentiment toward the company in the short-term. This worked well for a short time, but then the stock fell along with the broader technology sector, partly due to the launch of a new Chinese AI model, the Kimi K3. The company published its disappointing earnings report on Wednesday after the market close amid this weaker market sentiment, causing the stock price to reach our previously set stop-loss level during yesterday’s trading. Accordingly, we are closing our Trading Idea.
The Chinese Kimi K3 model, which made American investors worried was unveiled in mid-July and it was developed by Beijing based Moonshot AI. The new AI model caused concern among investors primarily because it performed very well against its American competitors (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic) while doing so at a lower cost, which triggered a sell-off in certain technology stocks.
The situation was further complicated by the fact that the weaker performance of technology stocks also put pressure on certain investment funds. For example, Situational Awareness—a hedge fund that had previously performed exceptionally well and managed approximately $45 billion—was forced to sell all of its public stock holdings due to margin requirements (though it retained some of its private equity holdings).
Meta’s disappointing earnings report was released on Wednesday after the market close amid this weaker market environment. The company met expectations in terms of revenue, but profits fell short of estimates, although one-off items also played a significant role in this. Furthermore, the company’s forecast for the current quarter was disappointing and may indicate that the ramp-up in computing capacity sales will be slower than expected. Meanwhile, consistently high investment plans may continue to put pressure on free cash flow generation. As a result, the stock price fell sharply during yesterday’s trading and reached our previously set stop-loss level. Accordingly, we are closing our Trading Idea.
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