With a pullback in some tech stocks over the last week, it's a good time to go hunting for ideas. One stock worth taking a closer look at after declining over the last week is social media company Meta Platforms (META 2.55%). The company has been posting exceptionally strong revenue growth recently, and management seemed particularly bullish about Meta's long-term prospects during its earnings call. On top of all this, the stock trades at an attractive valuation given how fast its business is growing.
Here's a closer look at why Meta looks like an attractive stock to buy after declining about 4% over the past week.
Image source: Getty Images.
Big growth opportunities
After listening to Meta's most recent earnings call, it's hard not to be bullish about the tech company's long-term potential.
Not only is Meta growing fast, with fourth-quarter revenue rising 24% year over year, as ad impressions delivered across its platforms jumped 18% and average price per ad rose 6%, but management emphasized to investors several times throughout its call that it sees big growth opportunities ahead.
"We have significant opportunities to improve our core business in 2026," said Meta chief financial officer Susan Li during the company's fourth-quarter earnings call.
Li continued:
We plan to continue to prioritize investing in the business to support these opportunities, while also positioning us for an entirely new and exciting product cycle over the coming years, powered by our AI models.
Later in the call, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is focused on at least "several major business opportunities" at the moment. Importantly for shareholders, one of these major opportunities isn't very speculative.
One is just "going to be improving the core products and accelerating the current business," Zuckerberg explained. This suggests that Zuckerberg believes there's significant incremental value to unlock from its already exceptional core business. As one example of how the company is improving its existing business, Zuckerberg noted that it's working to improve how AI recommends ads across its platforms.
But Zuckerberg seems even more excited about entirely new business opportunities AI may create for the company.
"And then there's going to be several, many, I think, new business opportunities that come up," he noted.
And this isn't just all fluff. Meta is putting its money where its mouth is. The company guided for 2026 capital expenditures to be between $115 billion and $135 billion, "with year-over-year growth driven by increased investment to support our Meta Superintelligence Labs efforts and core business," explained Li. What does the year-over-year growth look like? Capital expenditures in 2025 were just $72.2 billion, so the midpoint of this guidance range implies 73% year-over-year growth.
NASDAQ: META
Key Data Points
Business momentum
But even without consideration of the company's big bets on growth opportunities, Meta's business looks good in its own right relative to its valuation. Sure, Meta's earnings per share grew only 11% year over year in Q4, but it's amazing the company even managed any growth given the significant investment cycle it is in; the company's costs and expenses soared 40% year over year during the period, yet earnings per share still grew at a double-digit rate.
Further, the company's underlying business momentum is particularly evident in management's guidance. Meta's first-quarter revenue guidance calls for year-over-year growth of 26% to 34%. While management expects a four percentage point tailwind to this growth rate from foreign exchange, it's still incredible to think that, even after adjusting for this tailwind, management is guiding for up to 30% year-over-year revenue growth.
Sure, shares aren't cheap at 29 times earnings. But, all things considered, the stock looks quite attractive today. Of course, investors who buy the stock should consider it a risky position, given the significant ramp in capital expenditures as the company bets on major growth opportunities. Overall, however, I like the stock at its current price.
