Meta Platforms surges as Wall Street says tech giant 'continues to impress'
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Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) shares surged more than 8% in pre-market trading on Thursday as Wall Street analysts effused praise on the tech giant after its strong second-quarter results and guidance.
Barclays analyst Ross Sandler, who has an overweight rating on Meta (META) shares, said CEO Mark Zuckerberg "seems to have everything dialed in."
"METAâs overall execution is strong, engagement is increasing across the board, monetization is cranking up alongside an improving digital ad market, and new products like Threads and many more GenAI features are helping the [second-half] narrative," Sandler wrote in an investor note. 
"Consumer internet stocks rarely go on this kind of a run, but we think we are only at halftime and as noted above, the multiple barely assigns value to what META is doing," Sandler, who also bumped his price target to $410 from $320, added.
Citi analyst Ronald Josey reiterated his buy rating on Meta (META) after the results, calling out strong adoption of new ad formats like Sponsored Reels and the acceleration of Click-to-WhatsApp among advertisers.
Josey also said he was "impressed" that the roughly 75% of the company's advertisers now use Reels ads, which has become a $10B business, just one year after Meta (META) started monetizing it. 
During the second-quarter, Meta (META) earned $2.98 per share as revenue rose 11% year-over-year to $32B, above analysts estimates of $2.91 per share and $31.03B in revenue.
Looking ahead, Meta (META) expects third-quarter revenue to fall within a range of $32B to $34.5B, well above the $31.11B that analysts were expecting.
The Zuckerberg-led company also lowered its full-year capital expenditure forecast to be between $27B and $30B, down from a previous range of $30B to $33B due to cost savings in non-AI servers and spending shifts into 2024.
Meta (META) said capital expenditures should grow in 2024, however, due to investing in data center and servers, especially for artificial intelligence-linked work.
More on Meta Platforms and its strong earnings

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