The 8:30 hosts preview Meta's (META) earnings report due tonight, highlighting capital spending and adoption of its Muse AI agent, including downloads and retention, as the two main items analysts will watch. Capex for the quarter is cited at about $41 billion. Consensus expectations are EPS of $3.56 and revenue of $63.3 billion. Options now imply a one-day move of about 6.6%, up from about 3.2% earlier. The stock surged after the Muse news but has since drifted lower along with the broader AI trade.
Summary written by Upside AI from the original article. Read the source for full details.
Read the original on Yahoo Finance ↗
Keywords
Open a keyword to see other news on the same topic.
Related tickers and likely impact
META
• NeutralMeta Platforms
Relevance: medium
| Market | US stocks |
|---|---|
| Sector | Communication Services |
| Industry | Interactive Media & Services |
| Market cap | $1.9T |
| Close on 10/20/2026 | 694.44 |
| Change that session | -1.56% |
Impact is scored by AI from the headline and may be wrong. It is not investment advice.
Related news
- Here's how Meta's earnings could end up being a recipe for disaster
Meta's earnings report tonight is closely watched because it sits at the intersection of the AI spending story and the advertising business that funds it. Investors want to know whether AI is helping advertisers reach customers and generate enough extra revenue to justify the infrastructure investment, and how much more Zuckerberg plans to spend. Meta shares lost $12 yesterday and were rising back to around 490 this morning. The speaker argues that if Zuckerberg shows profits can grow alongside spending, confidence in the AI trade will be restored, but a bigger spending plan without convincing earnings growth would be a recipe for disaster.
- Meta Heads Into Earnings With 29% Upside on Our Model
Meta is scheduled to report third-quarter results after the close on October 21, with shares closing at $709.33. The article's model sets a 12-month target of $913.41, arguing that ad revenue growth near 30% a year outweighs the margin pressure from AI spending. Second-quarter revenue rose 27.96% to $60.80 billion, but EPS of $6.18 missed the $7.22 consensus, ending a six-quarter streak of beats. Management guided third-quarter revenue to $61 to $64 billion and plans 2026 capital expenditures of $130 to $145 billion, while second-quarter free cash flow fell to $784 million. The bull case is $1,046.27 and the bear case is $779.62.
- What It Will Take to Get Meta Above This New Plateau
Meta shares trade at $694.25, below the $730 level where the stock has repeatedly stalled, as investors await the next earnings report. Ad revenue rose 27% to $59.36 billion on 14% more ad impressions and 12% higher prices per ad, but capital spending is climbing sharply: Meta expects $130 billion to $145 billion in 2026, up from $72.22 billion in 2025. Second-quarter free cash flow fell to $784 million from $8.55 billion a year earlier, operating margin dropped to 31% from 43%, and diluted EPS of $6.18 missed the $7.22 consensus. Management attributes much of the weakness to one-time items, including $2.4 billion in legal charges and $1.2 billion in severance. Of the 63 analysts covering the stock, the average target is $819, implying about 18% upside, and the article says the stock needs third-quarter revenue near the top of the $61 billion to $64 billion guidance, an operating margin recovering toward 40%, and signs that 2027 capex is leveling off.
- Meta, Tesla, and IBM earnings: What to Watch
Market Domination Overtime host Brooke DiPalma previews three big tech earnings reports due Wednesday, Oct. 21: Meta (META), Tesla (TSLA) and IBM (IBM). Investors will look for signs that Meta's heavy AI spending is paying off, including its new Muse AI assistant and plans to give developers access to its AI models, while Wall Street already expects its capital spending to reach $200 billion in 2027. Tesla, which already beat Wall Street's vehicle delivery estimates for the quarter, reports Q3 results after the market closes, and investors will watch for updates on its Robotaxi expansion, Cybertruck rollout and Optimus robots. IBM will be judged on whether its software sales improve after a volatile week for the sector, with attention on steady demand for Red Hat software and its outlook for the rest of the year.
- META Earnings & 2 Other AI-Related Reports to Watch This Week
Several AI-linked companies report this week, led by Meta Platforms (META) and its Q3 earnings. Investors are focused on advertising, where consensus revenue is $61.9 billion, up 23.5% year over year; in the latest quarter, ad impressions rose 14% and average price per ad rose 12%, and Meta has beaten advertising expectations in each of the last five periods. Attention also centers on Muse, the personal AI agent launched in September, which has reportedly more than two million daily users, and on META's 2026 capital expenditure guidance of $130-$145 billion. EPS expectations have trended down, with earnings seen falling about 19%. Bloom Energy (BE) and Western Digital (WDC) also report this week.
- Meta Q3 earnings to test Wall Street's stomach for AI spending
Meta is set to report third-quarter results after the bell on Wednesday, kicking off Big Tech's earnings season. Bloomberg analyst consensus expects EPS of $3.56 on revenue of $63.3 billion, versus $1.05 and $51.2 billion a year earlier, while capital expenditures are projected to rise 117% to $41 billion. Reality Labs is expected to post a $5.2 billion operating loss. The results come as investors weigh AI spending, including CoreWeave's (CRWV) debt load, and Meta stock is down more than 3% over the past year. Meanwhile, its Muse AI agent reached 10 million downloads 40 days after its US launch, faster than ChatGPT and Claude, and BofA says Meta has the least risk of AI disruption to its core business.
Related markets
Latest news
- Amazon (AMZN): Can Custom AI Silicon Outpace Capex Commitments?
Amazon opened its Trainium AI chips to every PyTorch developer, letting engineers run existing code on its own hardware without rewriting it. The chips business is selling at an annual pace above $25 billion, and AWS sales grew 37% in the second quarter, up from 17% a year earlier, while CEO Andy Jassy said the AI business has also passed a $25 billion annual run rate. Anthropic and OpenAI have made multi-year commitments to Trainium. However, AI-related spending pushed free cash flow to an outflow of $7.6 billion over the past 12 months, versus an inflow of $18.2 billion a year earlier, and long-term debt rose to $128.9 billion from $65.6 billion at the end of last year. Second-quarter operating income rose 43% to $27.5 billion, but the article says the stock now depends on AWS demand lasting long enough for cash flow to recover.
- Anthropic Has Locked In Over $600 Billion of Computing, More Than Intel Is Worth. It Still Wants More and That’s Big News for AMD.
Ahead of its IPO, Anthropic has committed more than $600 billion to computing, more than Intel's $484.7 billion market value, according to leaked reports of its S-1 filing. The article cites three different totals: $518 billion of signed commitments (Reuters, late September), above $600 billion (Crypto Briefing), and a possible $750 billion of extra computing spending over several years (Wall Street Journal). Anthropic reportedly brought in $16.3 billion of revenue in the first half of 2026 but posted an $80.7 billion net loss, mostly from accounting charges. AMD said Anthropic will deploy up to 2 gigawatts of its MI450 GPUs starting in the first half of 2027, and AMD's second-quarter revenue rose 50.1% to $11.54 billion, with Data Center revenue up 107% to $6.72 billion. The article says the risks center on Anthropic's hard-to-cancel commitments, its losses and its dependence on an IPO, and notes AMD trades at a P/E of 201.
- AI bottlenecks 'keep shifting': Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang explains
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, speaking with Deirdre Bosa at Nvidia GTC Berlin, said AI bottlenecks keep shifting, moving from wafers to CoWoS, HBM memory, silicon photonics and connectors, and now to power. He said power is often available, but land, power shells, generator delivery, grid connections and construction limits create the problem, and permitting rules differ across countries and states. Huang argued Nvidia is resilient because it supports every AI model, cloud provider and computer company across every country, so it can ship chips wherever a bottleneck is resolved. He expected these physical bottlenecks to persist for a couple more years as AI factories ramp up.
- Nvidia (NVDA) Is Trading Like Growth Will Stop. The Numbers Say Otherwise.
A hotter-than-expected inflation report pushed Nvidia down more than 3% in one session, as investors worried about interest rate hikes that would raise borrowing costs for companies building AI data centers. Fiscal second-quarter revenue still reached $96.2 billion, up 106%, with data center sales up 117%, and the company guided fiscal third-quarter revenue to $108.0 billion, plus or minus 2%, excluding data center compute sales to China. Gross margin was 75.0% in the quarter. The article's main question is whether Nvidia's customers can keep paying for chips, pointing to CoreWeave's sharp drop after its bond yield chart spread online and the doubts it raised about its heavy debt. Nvidia has announced financing partnerships with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR aimed at bringing more than $500 billion of outside capital into AI infrastructure over time, though definitive agreements are still needed.
- Bitcoin price tags $84.6K as US stocks head higher on SpaceX Q3 earnings beat
Bitcoin rose nearly 2% to $84,600, its first time at that level since Oct. 7, as US stocks gained after SpaceX reported third-quarter revenue of $14.6 billion, up 161% year over year and beating expectations by nearly 15%. SpaceX also posted net income of $4.4 billion, and analysts at Truist Securities said its results helped calm fears over corporate spending on AI buildouts. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.7% early in the session before giving back some gains, while South Korea's KOSPI finished 3.29% higher at 5,735 points. Rekt Capital said Bitcoin needed a daily close above $83,400 to shift focus higher, and that a rejection there could send price below $82,500.
- Bybit will look for big broker partnerships to take on Robinhood in the U.S.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou said the exchange plans to enter the U.S. through a partnership with an established local firm, such as Interactive Brokers, rather than pursue state-by-state licenses that could take two to three years. He noted Bybit, which has over 80 million registered users in more than 180 countries and regions, has a clean U.S. record and would wait for the Clarity Act or a clearer federal regulator before moving rather than rushing in. Zhou described the U.S. as competitive and saturated, and pointed to the U.K. as a relatively untapped market with a new crypto regime and no dominant global exchange, though entry costs are very high. Bybit also plans to launch an everything app offering derivatives and tokenized stocks in Europe as early as the first quarter of next year.
Get the briefing on Telegram or Zalo
Join the Upside Telegram channel or Zalo group for the Vietnam stocks and gold briefing at 8:00 and 19:00 (Vietnam time) on trading days, plus a weekly wrap on Saturday morning.