JPMorgan is no longer a buyer of Meta Platforms stock, a first since the IPO

Is this a turning point in the success story Facebook ? For the first time in its history, the social network created by Mark Zuckerberg lost daily users in the fourth quarter of 2021. A combination of negative factors, ranging from competition from TikTok to new privacy rules from Apple, passing through more economic considerations (inflation, supply difficulties), explain this disappointment, which made the title plunge in New York, Thursday evening. The action collapsed by 26.4%… 252 billion dollars of market capitalization went up in smoke, unheard of on Wall Street!

Under pressure

Bad news never comes alone, Meta Platforms is the victim of several downgrades from analysts. Among them, the powerful American bank JPMorgan, which lowered its opinion from “overweight” to “neutral”. This is, again, a first for the establishment since Facebook was introduced on the stock market in May 2012. The group “ faces a significant slowdown in growth as he begins a costly, uncertain, and multi-year transition to the Metaverse, writes analyst Dough Anmuth in a note. We are stepping back as we believe the stock will be under pressure or oscillate over the coming month. The expert also reduced his target price, from 385 dollars to 284 dollars, knowing that the title is now trading at 238 dollars. JPMorgan is not the threshold to be more cautious. BMO Capital Markets has revised its position from “outperformance” to “in line performance”, to aim for a new price target of 290 dollars, against 383 dollars previously. Finally, the disappointing quarterly results of Meta Platforms led Loop Capital to go from “buy” to “neutral” on the dossier and Mirae Asset Securities from “buy” to “speculative buy”.