It's been a tough couple of months for Roblox (RBLX +0.21%) shareholders. After an impressive growth-driven rally in the middle of the year, the video gaming company's stock has fallen more than 30% from its October high. The market's rattled by how much money it's going to be spending in the quarter currently underway, as well as the year ahead.
There's a method to the apparent madness, though. The company expects these investments to not only pay for themselves, but also do so quickly. Investors will be looking for the same.
Image source: Getty Images.
The race is on
Blame guidance, mostly. Roblox's third-quarter sales and earnings results released in late October both topped expectations, with revenue growing 48% year over year to $1.36 billion. But the company now expects its fourth-quarter capital expenditures to reach $468 million -- $158 million more than previously anticipated -- in order to "meet the faster-than-expected surge in demand and to invest in strategic initiatives like safety and AI."
Big spending usually hasn't mattered much for Roblox, which has not only remained unprofitable since the video gaming platform's launch back in 2006, but has also reported ever-growing losses most of that time. Those losses finally began shrinking in 2024, though, offering a much-needed glimmer of hope to patient shareholders.
Now the company may be moving backward again, with no certainty or clarity as to when or if any additional growth will fully offset this ramped-up spending. As Roblox's Q3 2025 shareholder letter explains about what it sees for 2026, "Our operating margin could decline slightly year-over-year due to the combination of higher DevEx [developer exchange] rates and the impact of infrastructure and safety-related investments catching up with rapid bookings growth in the back half of 2025." The letter goes on to say, "These investments will also require additional CapEx [capital expenditures] spend such that the total magnitude of CapEx will likely be roughly flat between 2025 and 2026."
Given that the video gaming platform is now 20 years old and still regularly in the red, investors will be scrutinizing every penny spent going forward, and making sure it's generating the additional revenue it's supposed to.
In other words, there's no room for anything less than perfect progress from Roblox in the year ahead.
NYSE: RBLX
Key Data Points
The bar is set low, but it's still a bar
This doesn't mean Roblox must swing to a profit in 2026 for the stock to recover, to be clear; it could take several more years for the company to fight its way out of the red and into the black. The organization simply needs to demonstrate that all of the heavy spending coming in 2026 is paying off soon thereafter. That alone may be enough to lift this speculative name out of its current funk.
This might help: Despite the unexpectedly high past and projected expenditures, the vast majority of analysts still rate Roblox stock a strong buy, with a consensus one-year price target of $146.28 that's nearly 50% above the ticker's present price. Indeed, Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan upgraded this stock from a neutral rating to a buy in late October following the release of its third-quarter results and despite its forward-looking guidance, making a point of highlighting Roblox's "strength in bookings, revenue and DAU [daily average user] growth."
