Meta's core ad strength is offset by heavy AI capex; valuation upside depends on these investments yielding profit growth.

Meta is the world's largest social networking company , with more than 3.6 billion people using at least one of its apps daily. The company owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads.

These apps make up the largest part of Meta's family of apps, and generate most of the company's revenue, especially through advertising. Meta also operates virtual reality labs, which include virtual reality devices, augmented reality technology, and rapidly growing AI glasses.

What is most important today is that Meta is evolving to go beyond the traditional concept of social networking . The company has increasingly become a platform for advertising, communication, and AI- powered personal computing .

Advertising still makes up the largest portion of revenue, but Meta is now investing heavily in potential new revenue streams, including AI subscriptions , AI agents, business messaging, and AI-powered wearables.

As for competition, Meta competes with Alphabet and YouTube in the field of digital advertising and video consumption. As Meta expands into the field of artificial intelligence, its competition with companies such as OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Anthropic is increasing.

This means that Meta is no longer just competing for social media users, but also for consumer attention, advertising budgets, and perhaps even the future of artificial intelligence .

As for unique value, Meta's biggest competitive advantage is the integration of artificial intelligence with distribution.

Very few companies are able to develop a new artificial intelligence product and immediately offer it to more than 3 billion daily active users. Meta already controls many of the world's largest consumer platforms , giving it massive amounts of interaction data that can improve content recommendations, ad targeting, ad creation, and conversion rates.

All of this creates a very effective feedback loop. Improved AI can increase engagement, increased engagement allows for more advertising space, and improved targeting improves advertiser revenue.

Stronger advertising revenue enables Meta to raise advertising prices. These profits can be reinvested in more artificial intelligence infrastructure. Therefore , unlike independent AI companies, Meta already has a huge and very profitable business that allows it to monetize AI.

Back on July 29 of this year, Meta announced its second-quarter results , which show that its core advertising business remains very strong. Revenues reached $60.8 billion , a 28 % year-over-year increase, and advertising revenues increased by 27% to $59.4 billion.

More importantly , Meta grows both the quantity of ads it offers and the amount advertisers are willing to pay. Ad impressions increased by 14%, while the average ad price increased by another 12% . This is a very powerful combination .

This shows that Meta is not only showing more ads to users, but is also improving the efficiency of monetizing these ads.

As for profits, the situation was more complicated. Net income fell by 14% to $15.9 billion. But this decline came at a time when Meta had significantly increased its spending.

Total expenses jumped by about 55% during the quarter to reach $42 billion . Spending on research and development alone reached nearly $21.7 billion in one quarter, an increase of 67% year-on-year.

These figures give an idea of how much Meta has invested in artificial intelligence. The company spent nearly $31 billion on capital expenditures in the second quarter alone.

The administration expects capital expenditures for the whole of 2026 to range between $130 billion and $145 billion. To illustrate this, Meta spent approximately $72 billion in the entire year of 2025.

Therefore, capital spending can almost double in one year.

Now, let's take a look at some of the other positive aspects of Meta platforms. One of the most notable new developments is the release of Meta for Muse on September 8.

Muse represents a quantum leap for Meta from a traditional chatbot to a personal AI agent.

Instead of simply answering questions, Muse was designed to perform specific tasks, such as sending emails, organizing projects, working across different applications, and executing multi- step tasks on behalf of the user.

The importance of this development lies in moving Meta from simply being an AI that recommends content to an AI that is actually capable of carrying out actions . Meta's increased capital expenditure has attracted considerable interest from investors, as the company seeks to keep pace with new developments in generative artificial intelligence.

Moreover, these massive investments in artificial intelligence are yielding tangible results, as AI-powered improvements to the ad engine led to a 14% increase in ad impressions and a 12% rise in the average price paid for advertising in the second quarter of 2026.

These figures support strong growth in revenue and engagement.

From a valuation perspective, Meta has a market capitalization of approximately $1.7 trillion, at a price of approximately $675. The stock is currently trading at about 21.5 times its projected 2026 earnings, which is roughly in line with its historical average over the past five years.

Interestingly, revenue and profit growth are trending at a faster pace than Meta's long-term historical average growth rate. For example, if we look at the projected revenue growth, which is around 23%, it is much higher than the average of 16% over the past five years.

Profit is also expected to grow by 21%, compared to the five-year average of approximately 18%.

With these rates higher than normal, the main reason the earnings multiplier is not expanding significantly is that investors are not taking into account the massive spending on artificial intelligence.

Therefore , the issue of evaluation is relatively simple. If Meta's investments ultimately achieve strong revenue and profit growth, the stock could get a higher price-to-earnings ratio .

However, if capital expenditures remain large without a corresponding improvement in profitability, this may continue to limit valuation expansion. Good. Now , let's address some concerns as well. Spending remains the biggest concern.

As I mentioned earlier, Meta could spend as much as $145 billion on capital expenditures this year , a 55% increase in the second quarter.

Ultimately, investors will need evidence that these expenditures are generating additional profits. Free cash flow has already declined sharply due to this spending, and earnings per share growth is currently lagging behind revenue growth.

Realty Labs continues to incur billions of dollars in losses, and Meta faces ongoing legal and regulatory risks in both the United States and Europe. There is also fierce competition in the field of artificial intelligence.

Meta also competes for engineers, computing resources and AI users with companies such as OpenAI , Google, Microsoft , Anthropic, and others.

So, regardless of the fact that Meta has enormous financial resources, this is also an expensive technological arms race .

Good. Now, we move on to the section where we talk about Meta's technical situation. The technical situation has improved significantly. Although the stock has fallen by more than 12% over the past 52 weeks, it has risen by approximately 16% in just the last 30 days.

Looking at the weekly chart, we find that Meta's stock is currently trading below a major downtrend line that extends from its previous highs of nearly $800.

The stock recently broke through this downward trendline and is currently trading at around $675. This is an important indicator because it suggests a long-term correction from its previous highs, and may eventually turn into a medium- term uptrend.

Looking at the daily chart, we find that Meta's stock is also trading above its key moving averages, including the 20, 50 and 200 day moving averages.

Looking at the daily chart, we find that the first significant support zone is likely located between $645 and $650. The reason for this is that this area was previously a resistance area, and after the breakthrough, it could now become a support area.

If the stock falls below $645, the next support level is approximately between $605 and $615. From a momentum perspective, we clearly see that the momentum is strong. The daily MACD indicator is strongly positive and continues to improve.

The weekly MACD indicator is also positive. This indicates that the market momentum in the short and medium term is currently moving in the same direction. However , it is worth noting an important point: the daily Relative Strength Index is slightly above 72, which technically puts Meta's stock in the overbought zone in the short term.

But this does not necessarily mean the end of the rise. Strong stocks may remain in overbought territory for extended periods, but this suggests an increased likelihood of a short-term consolidation or pullback following the current rally.

Looking at the weekly Relative Strength Index , it is trading at only around 57. Therefore, the long-term graph is positive without exaggeration. In short, from a technical standpoint, this can be described as a short-term positive trend , but a medium-term positive one.

In short, the company is at the forefront of developing products and technologies that facilitate communication and interaction between people. Meta's advertising system remains extremely strong, but the story extends beyond advertising alone.

AI investments are considered essential to maintaining its dominance in the social media sector, while its core advertising business continues to perform strongly. Finally, despite the high capital expenditures, Meta is a highly profitable company by nature, and its profitability increases as its reach expands and it reaches billions of users across all its platforms.