Meta Platform, Inc. (NASDAQ:meta) is one of The must-watch AI stocks on Wall Street. On November 19, Cantor Fitzgerald lowered the firm’s price target on the stock from $830 to $720 and placed an “overweight” rating on the shares. The company maintains a positive outlook on the stock but is cautious about near-term cost constraints.
In an investor note, the firm noted how Meta guided for FY26E operating expense growth to be significantly faster than 2025 on the 3Q25 earnings call. This was driven by depreciation, operating costs of infrastructure, and recently hired AI talent.
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Meanwhile, Meta’s recent agreements with four cloud vendors (GOOGL, ORCL, CRVW, and NBIS) bring cloud computing spend to an estimated $40B+, a significant increase in future commitments and could create potential headwinds for 2026.
Kantar believes Meta is likely to incur an estimated $4 billion of incremental costs in FY26E, representing 3 percentage points of year-over-year growth. However, analysts said the payout is likely linked to the capacity brought online by partners.
“Admittedly, a lot of the payments are likely to be tied to the capacity brought online by partners, which introduces a layer of uncertainty and could delay future spending, but we expect some incremental headwinds in 2026E. Thus, we currently estimate total OPEX of $152B (+30% y/y) for FY26E. We have reduced our FY26E EPS by 2% and our revised PT is $720 (vs. $830 before).”
The meta platform is expanding its advertising capabilities and also investing heavily in artificial intelligence and the metaverse.
While we acknowledge the potential of meta as an investment, we believe some AI stocks offer greater upside potential and have less downside risk. If you’re looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that could also significantly benefit from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, check out our free report. best short term ai stocks,
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