Users of the Meta social media platforms — Facebook, Instagram and Threads — started reporting outages around 10 a.m. ET on Tuesday, which Meta spokesman Andy Stone acknowledged on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“We're aware people are having trouble accessing our services,” he tweeted. “We are working on this now.”
As a result of the social media company’s platforms being down globally during the morning hours, Meta’s (META) shares fell slightly by 1.75% at 3:15 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Meta reported that all three platforms were down because of technical issues related to the company’s operations, but did not elaborate further. All the sites were up and running by 1 p.m. ET, the company said.
“Earlier today, a technical issue caused people to have difficulty accessing some of our services,” Stone tweeted. “We resolved the issue as quickly as possible for everyone who was impacted, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”
This was not Meta’s first disruption, however. In 2021, the platforms experienced an even longer outage of six hours.
Are these outage-related dips a good time to buy Meta stock? Not necessarily: Investors should refrain refrain from reacting to recent news of a company’s operations or technical difficulties, Steve Sosnick, chief strategist of Interactive Brokers, a brokerage based in Greenwich, Connecticut, told Cheddar.
“A one-day outage shouldn’t upend the investment thesis for Meta, “ he said.
While the news was not good, investors should watch other market indicators — earlier shares of Meta were down about the same amount as the Nasdaq 100 (NDX), a benchmark for tech stocks, which “tells us that the market as a whole isn’t fleeing Meta,” Sosnick said.
If Meta continues to run into technical challenges that are persistent or a frequent occurrence, then “that could be more problematic,” he said. “But today’s move shouldn’t change one’s long-term view on Meta.”
Even though shares of Meta dipped by nearly 2 percent, investors should refrain from “making too much of the opportunity to buy Meta on today’s pullback,” Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Financial, told Cheddar
“While the stock is off about 2%, that should be put in the context of a stock that’s up 38% on a year-to-date basis and we’re just in the month of March,” he said.
Volatility in a stock can serve as a buying opportunity, but investors should focus on longer time periods unlike day traders.
“Opportunities with the daily volatility like we’re seeing today is certainly appropriate for and necessary to day traders,” Hogan said. “But for long-term investors we would suggest it’s better to stick to your diversified portfolio and try to tune out the daily noise.”
Breaking news and headlines always capture interest from investors, but focusing on a company’s balance sheet is more important, Thomas Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital in New York, told Cheddar.
“We are not a buyer of Meta at these levels,” he said. “It’s a great business and will grow over time, but the time to buy was when no one wanted it in fall 2022. Now everyone wants it and it’s not an ideal setup for new capital.”
Investors should not “think in days,” Hayes added. “We think in months and more importantly, years. Headlines are noise that often take people out of their stocks at the exact wrong time.”
