Meta Platforms added $196 billion in stock market value on Friday, marking the biggest one-day gain by any company in Wall Street history after the Facebook parent declared its first dividend and posted robust results.
Meta’s stock surged 20.3% for the session, also recording its biggest one-day percentage increase in a year and its third biggest since its 2012 Wall Street debut. Its stock market value now stands at more than $1.22 trillion.
Days ahead of Facebook’s 20th anniversary, Meta late on Thursday authorized an additional $50 billion in share repurchases and said its quarterly dividend would be 50 cents per share. Meta Stock Has Best Day In A Decade As Amazon Shares Hit 2-Year High
Meta’s dividend plan means a hefty payout for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who owns about 350 million Meta Class A and Class B shares. The Facebook co-founder could get about $175 million every quarter.
Amazon and Meta Share Price:
Shares of Meta and Amazon were on top on Friday at multiyear highs after the technology giants each reported blowout earnings, capping the firms’ recoveries from their 2022 nadirs as some of their big tech stock peers have been deported to the sidelines.
Optimism about the potential for artificial intelligence contributed to a 24% rally in the S&P 500 last year, with Meta, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Broadcom recently hitting record highs. With Friday’s gain, Meta is now up 35% in 2024.
The world’s biggest social media company flagged strong ad sales and a rebound in user growth during its fourth-quarter results, which saw its revenue surge by 25%. Its forecast for current-quarter revenue also exceeded analysts’ estimates.
Surging revenue, combined with an 8% drop in costs and expenses after eliminating more than 21,000 jobs since late 2022, allowed Meta to triple its net income to $14.02 billion.
Meta has been spending billions of dollars over the past decade to boost its computing capacity for generative AI products it is adding to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, as well as hardware devices such as its Ray-Ban smart glasses.
Friday’s increase in Meta’s market capitalization eclipsed the previous record held by Amazon, which saw its market value surge by $190 billion on Feb. 4, 2022, following a blowout quarterly report. One day before, Meta lost over $200 billion in value, the biggest loss in U.S. stock market history.
KEY FACTS
- Meta stock jumped more than 20% to a new record closing share price of $474.99 on Friday, notching its largest single-day gain since July 2013 as investors digested the social media company’s Thursday afternoon earnings report featuring revenue and profit beats and debuting the company’s first-ever cash dividend payments to shareholders.
- Amazon’s comparatively 8% jump to over $170, its highest split-adjusted price since December 2021, came after it reported similarly strong quarterly results and provided guidance above expectations.
FORBES VALUATIONS
- Meta and Amazon’s billionaire founders grew far richer Friday as their respective companies’ stocks swelled.
- Amazon founder and chairman Jeff Bezos’ net worth grew from $12 billion to $194 billion, according to our real-time estimates, placing him just $5 billion behind Elon Musk for the mantle of the richest American.
- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune jumped from $28 billion to $167 billion, vaulting him past Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to become the world’s fourth-richest person.
CONTRA
- It was not sunshine for all big tech stocks on Friday. Shares of Apple sank 2% after the company’s own earnings report Thursday failed to impress Wall Street due in large part to weak sales in China, extending the iPhone maker’s year-to-date stock losses to 4%. Apple’s “sluggish growth” compared to its big tech peers is weighing on its stock price in the near term, Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi explained in a note to clients.
- On Friday, declining shares were of Google parent Alphabet (down 2%) and Tesla (down 3%), signifying the split in the “magnificent seven” stocks that drove 2023’s broad market gains. Among those seven leading stocks, Nvidia (up 34%), Meta (up 31%), Amazon (up 12%), and Microsoft (up 9%) have gained year-to-date, while Alphabet (down 1%), Apple (down 5%), and Tesla (down 26%) have slid. Each of those stocks rose by at least 30% in 2023, outperforming the S&P 500.
From Forbes: