What happened
The fallout from Meta Platforms' (META 1.04%) unhappy third quarter continued to rain down on Friday. Although shares of the huge social media company were recovering modestly, they still trailed the bellwether S&P 500 index. The stock was inching up by slightly over 1% in late-session trading, while the index was pushing ahead by 2.4%.
So what
In addition to the lingering gloomy sentiment deriving from that lackluster earnings report, several analysts became more bearish on Meta's prospects Friday. Chief among these was Edward Jones' David Heger, who downgraded his recommendation on the social media stock to hold, from his previous buy.
Heger said that while Meta is doing fairly well considering the current challenging macroeconomic environment, its deep plunge into the metaverse might not produce meaningful returns for quite some time. The company has been devoting more resources to its metaverse efforts lately.
Simon Barker of Societe Generale was another prognosticator getting notably more bearish on Meta. On Friday, he pulled the trigger on a monster price target cut; he now feels the stock is worth a mere $80 per share, down considerably from the previous level of $185.
Meta badly whiffed on third-quarter earnings, and because of this there is a "call for a paradigm shift in its appraisal," in Barker's view. The drastic price target cut was necessitated by significant reductions in the analyst's estimates for full-year non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings for 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Now what
Judging by Meta's performance on the exchange Friday, the stock still has plenty of believers and/or bottom feeders willing to take a shot on the current price weakness. But the issues raised by analysts in the wake of the earnings release do need to be taken seriously, and Meta investors would do well to monitor them.
