Meta topped estimates for its latest fourth quarter and is Stock of the Week. Cheddar News breaks down its results.

Meta topped estimates for its latest fourth quarter and is Stock of the Week. Cheddar News breaks down the company's results.

Closing Bell

Stock of The Week: Meta

All right, well, let's move on here to our stock of the week. Drum roll. We're gonna cue it up, please. Thank you. Okay. Looking at meta after the company's surprised Wall Street by beating revenue estimates for the fourth quarter. So let's take a look at some of the positive data out of the report. Facebook's parent company reporting more than 32 billion in sales for the quarter, beating on daily active users, an average revenue per user as well. While its monthly active users were slightly below estimates, it still showed that some three billion people use the app every month, almost 40% of the world's population. Facebook parent company has seen one of its best days of the stock market trading on Thursday, jumping 23% in a single session after the Mark Zuckerberg led company noted signs of improvement while the tech giant, which is fueled by advertising that's hands down and spreading butter after the business saying it anticipates lower costs this year and sees sales in the first three months of the year exceeding the same metric from a year ago. The stock of 24% this week and a stock pop welcome news to shareholders who saw shares tumbled from 65% in 2022. Well, underperforming the broader market, the company grappling with a slump in digital advertising, as well as ongoing competition from Tiktok last year. The Fed's announcement, Wednesday of slower rate rises, giving meta some extra momentum announcing a $40 billion dollars stock buyback program. Zuckerberg calling this a quote year of efficiency as the company looks to lower operating expenses and improve profits. Well, Zuckerberg, surprising many in late 2021 when he announced the company's pivot toward virtual reality, sinking billions into the metaverse and drawing some sharp criticism from both analysts and investors. In fact, many investors feel the move is a distraction from the come Core money maker. It's ad sales, but now we know just how much meta sunk into this sparse virtual world last year. It's reality labs unit lost a whopping 13.7 billion in 2022, shed 4.4 billion on the metaverse in the fourth quarter alone. That's more than twice the total revenue from the metaverse for 2022. While there is some excitement for its VR offerings. Name of the quest Pro two headset, it's still extremely pricey at $1500 and that's not a small investment for people who may be suffering from an economic downturn. Report showing that sales of VR headsets actually declined 2% in 2022 compared to 2021. Well, it's virtual reality offerings will soon face increased competition is Apple and Sony are set to launch mixed reality and VR headsets respectively, Investors will want to make sure that meta can keep up with the ad sales momentum this year. While also making good on its metaverse promises Zuckerberg hoping to get a billion people in the metaverse by the second half of the decade and right now, it has just about 400 million monthly active users, most of which come from roadblocks.