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Meta stock price jumps over 7% in after-hours amid positive Q4 earnings report
Meta shares surged in after-hours trading after its Q4 earnings, jumping over 10% and climbing from a $668.73 close to about $736.50 by 4:45 p.m. ET.
The stock price of Meta saw over 7% rise in the market after-hours on Wednesday as the company released its Quarter 4 earnings report. The company reported an EPS of $8.88 on revenue of $59.9 billion in Q4 - significantly higher than market projections.
Meta Platforms closed on Monday at $668.73 per share - a 0.63% fall from the day's opening price. By 4:45 p.m. ET, the stock price was up by over 10%, reaching $736.50.
The surge in buying came as Meta Platform reported a higher than anticipated capital expenditures for 2026. The company projected a spending of $115 billion to $135 billion for 2026, a significant jump from its $72.22 billion spending in 2025.
The projected expenditure increase was far more than the market expectations of around $110 billion, and thus, hadn't been factored into the Meta stock price listed on the NASDAQ index.
The company revealed in its earnings report that the increased expenditure will drive its efforts in building Artificial Intelligence capacity, under Meta Superintelligence Labs.
Meta Revenue Stream Breakdown
Meta Platforms outdid its projected revenue of $58.4 billion (per a Bloomberg analysis) and brought in $1.5 billion more. Data shows that 97% of Meta's revenue comes from advertisements, and two of the key metrics related to ad performances number of ads seen by users and the average price per ad, grew by 18% and 6%, Barron reported.
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Potential Areas of Concerns
Though the overall report was positive, there were some areas of concern for the Mark Zuckerberg-owned company. Analysts are highlighting the overall expense growth and losses in certain divisions of Meta.
Meta's expense was up by 40% in Q4. With more expenditure announced in its AI and core business, the expense is expected to grow further through 2026. But investment in AI technologies is a trend common to most Big Tech companies, as Microsoft, Amazon and Google have also made major investments in AI.
The other area of concern is Meta's Reality Labs division, which brought in $955 million: $4 million lower than projections of $959. The company's operating loss is at $6 billion, also higher than projected.
