Opinions
John O'Connell, CFA
Meta Platforms Inc
META-Q
BUY
Sep 18, 2018
Stock price when the opinion was issued
You might be interested:
Like every chart, taken lumps over last little while. Back to doing great things after stepping away from the metaverse. Tariffs may affect it around the edges, but not at its core. 1 in 2 people in the world uses a META product every day. Multiple is not challenging. Yield is 0.41%.
Management issues seem contained. Regulatory issues will always come up. Interestingly, EU-announced tariffs didn't touch communication services companies, which is different from past practices.
Sold off massively, but it and its peers can still own the world. Billions of dollars from advertising. CEO has proven to be one of the great internet entrepreneurs. Trading at 20x PE, an unbelievable multiple for a company that could grow 10-15% for the next decade. Big long-term story on AI. Yield is 0.42%.
(Analysts’ price target is $729.19)Really good run into the inauguration, now fallen. Trial with the FTC over Instagram and WhatsApp is revealing all the dirty laundry, and that's hurting the stock. Not in China, not affected by tariffs. Already using AI in advertising.
Buying here won't hurt you if you have a long-term view. Or, you could try to get it cheaper on all the volatility.
A month ago, he reduced his tech holdings a lot. Thirst for AI continues pretty strong. Economic environment would have to be pretty tough for this name to go down too much more, but that could happen.
Both names are great. MSFT is a bit more expensive. META can suffer more on advertising if we go into a tougher economic environment. If you're confident that Trump wants to win the midterms and wants to be popular, and that we're going to avoid the worst-case outcome, you can buy both at these levels. Between the two, META gets the nod.
Expects this type of volatility until the fall, and then the whole Trump administration will get into campaign mode for the mid-terms. One of his top 5 holdings, and has been for ages. So many horses in the race, which they've learned how to monetize. 12-month price target of $805, about 28-29% runway.
Between GOOG and META, he'd go 50/50.
Doesn't own, but respects the name. Pretty decent valuation. Technicals look strong. One step away from breaking previous all-time highs at $740. Paying 27x forward PE for 15% growth, not a bad PEG ratio. Cornering the whole social media space. Watch out for what it's spending on the Metaverse.
He reduced his exposure to FB because it was getting too large in his portfolio and because of regulatory risks and costs. It's now down to a reasonable valuation. You can buy it here. There remains headline risk. But FB is doing the right thing to improve security, and this will get politicians off their back; it'll cost them money to do this. They're still growing rapidly, particularly in Instagram and Messenger. Well-run. The stock will be in the doghouse, but give them credit for using AI to weed out bad actors on their platform. Look long-term.