(new: Meta with market value gain record, closing prices and market capitalization on a closing price basis)
At the close of trading, one Meta share cost $474.99. That was a fifth more than the day before. The paper subsequently reached a record high of $485.96.
Analysts and investors at Meta were particularly enthusiastic about the advertising business, which continues to run at full speed. In 2024, the group could become one of the biggest market share winners in the advertising market, enthuses analyst Stephen Ju from the major Swiss bank UBS. Thanks to a strong increase in profits, the company is also offering a dividend for the first time, which, according to Ju, should also attract new groups of investors.
Analyst Brad Erickson from the Canadian bank RBC praised Meta’s “super-strong core business” and the emerging opportunities in the AI sector, which some people probably still underestimate. He believes Meta will go from being a leading provider in the social media sector to becoming a leader in the AI-based cloud intelligence business in a few years.
Even if Amazon is no longer a record holder, the shareholders had something to be happy about: the stock was sold at a premium of 7.87 percent to $171.81. This means that it is no longer far away from its record high reached in the summer of 2021 at just under $189.
AI is also an important topic at Amazon. Analyst Justin Post from Bank of America, for example, highlighted that the management of the online trading giant promised an acceleration in the AWS cloud business in the first quarter and pointed out that AI-driven demand was increasing. “Management expects $10 billion in AI-driven AWS revenue,” he stated.
Market analyst Konstantin Oldenburger from broker CMC Markets praised: “Amazon is back on the road to success. The money machine is printing again.” After all, the company achieved free cash inflow of almost $37 billion in 2023. “A record,” as JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth noted. And for Barclays analyst Ross Sandler, the online trading giant’s stock is his favorite among the mega-heavyweights. He pointed to the acceleration of AWS sales, order backlog and growth in the retail sector. In addition, margins increased and the mood in the AI sector is increasingly improving.
Apple investors not only had to cope with the loss of the stock as a record holder, but also losses in their portfolio. The share price went out of trading with a loss of 0.54 percent to $185.85. The company has no longer given cause for stormy enthusiasm with the iPhone business for a long time. The development of the smartphone business was only as expected, wrote UBS expert David Vogt and also criticized the sluggish Chinese business.
Despite Meta’s dramatic increase in valuation, the company still has a long way to go with a total valuation on the stock exchange based on the closing price of $1.21 trillion to capture another record: with $3.06 trillion is the software giant Microsoft way ahead. Despite the disappointing development, Apple follows with $2.87 trillion. Google parent Alphabet and Amazon share third place with $1.78 trillion each. At times on Friday, Amazon even overtook Alphabet in terms of market capitalization./ck/mis/he/he