CFRA, an independent research provider, has provided MT Newswires with the following research alert. Analysts at CFRA have summarized their opinion as follows:
We boost our 12-month target to $500 from $430, on a revised P/E of 23.1x our 2025 EPS view, within META’s five-year historical forward average. We up our 2024 EPS view to $18.87 from $17.52 and 2025 to $21.61 from $20.69. META posted Q4 EPS of $5.33 vs. $1.76, beating the $4.97 consensus. Sales rose 25% and Q1 guide was strong (6% above our view at the midpoint), on better-than-expected digital ad spend/share gain and strong Quest 3 holiday sales. We applaud META’s ability to keep its 2024 opex outlook unchanged from the original guide ($94B-$99B) and only moderately raise capex ($30B-$37B; up $2B at the high end), given the need for elevated AI investments. We like META’s improved FCF/capital allocation policy, with its dividend initiation ($0.50 quarterly, implies less than 1% yield) and new $50B buyback. We think secular prospects for META remain very much intact, to be led by Reels (now a positive growth contributor), Advantage+ shopping campaigns, Llama, business messaging, AI agents, and the metaverse.