Honestly, if you looked at the price of meta stock today and felt a little dizzy, you aren't alone. As of January 15, 2026, the stock closed at $620.80. That sounds like a big number, but it's a far cry from the all-time high of $796.25 we saw back in August. It’s been a weird ride. Meta is basically in this massive tug-of-war between its "money printer" advertising business and Mark Zuckerberg’s absolute obsession with artificial intelligence.
Wall Street is kind of freaking out.
The $100 Billion Question
The biggest thing weighing on the price of meta stock right now is the sheer amount of cash Zuckerberg is lighting on fire for AI infrastructure. We’re talking about capital expenditures that could top $100 billion in 2026. To put that in perspective, that’s more than the entire market cap of many Fortune 500 companies. Just spent on chips, data centers, and electricity.
Why?
Because Zuck believes in "Meta Superintelligence Labs." He recently told investors that 2025 was a "defining year" and that he’s basically betting the whole house on Llama 4 and AI-driven hardware like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
But investors are getting twitchy.
In the Q3 2025 earnings report, Meta actually beat revenue expectations, pulling in $51.24 billion. That’s huge. But the stock still dropped because the company admitted that 2026 is going to be even more expensive than 2025. People hate uncertainty. They especially hate it when a CEO says, "Trust me, I'm going to spend all your profits on robot brains."
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What’s Actually Happening Under the Hood?
It’s not all doom and gloom, though. If you look at the core business, the "Family of Apps"—Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads—is actually doing great.
- Instagram video time is up over 30% compared to last year.
- Daily Active People hit a staggering 3.54 billion.
- Ad prices rose 10% because Meta’s AI is getting better at showing you stuff you actually want to buy.
The irony here is that the very AI people are scared of is the thing currently keeping the stock afloat. Without those AI-driven ad improvements, the revenue wouldn't be growing at 26% year-over-year.
Analyst Targets: A Huge Gap
If you ask five different analysts where the price of meta stock is going, you’ll get six different answers. It’s messy.
Barton Crockett over at Rosenblatt recently set a wild price target of $1,117. He thinks the AI payoff is going to be legendary. On the flip side, some more conservative folks are looking at targets closer to $685, worried that the Reality Labs division (the VR/AR arm) is still a massive money pit. Reality Labs lost $4.4 billion in just one quarter last year.
That is a lot of VR headsets that people aren't buying.
Truist Securities recently reiterated a "Buy" rating with an $875 target. Their logic? Meta is trading at about 20 to 27 times earnings, while companies like Amazon and Alphabet are way higher. Basically, they think Meta is on sale because the market is being too dramatic about the spending.
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The Llama 4 Factor
There's also a bit of a "perception problem." Some tech insiders felt that Llama 4 didn't quite land the knockout punch people expected against OpenAI's latest models. This "lagging" feeling makes investors nervous that Meta is spending $100 billion just to be in second place.
But Zuckerberg is pivoting. Hard.
He recently implemented a new "AI-driven impact" metric for employees. Starting this year, every single person at Meta is being judged on how they use or build AI. It’s a high-stakes experiment. If it works, Meta becomes the most efficient company on earth. If it fails, they might see a massive exodus of talent who are tired of the "AI or die" mantra.
Is Meta Undervalued or Overextended?
This is the part where it gets tricky.
If you look at the financials, Meta’s "Great" health score from InvestingPro suggests the company isn't going bankrupt anytime soon. They have the cash. The question is whether that cash should be going back to shareholders as dividends and buybacks or into the Nvidia "contribution fund."
The current P/E ratio sits around 27.3. For a tech giant growing revenue at 21%, that’s actually not insane. Compare that to the dot-com bubble or even some of the software-as-a-service stocks today, and Meta looks almost... reasonable?
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Wait, what about the "Trump Trade" or regulation?
That's another layer. Between potential tariff chaos and the ongoing antitrust eyes on Big Tech, the macro environment is a minefield. Meta is currently trying to cut 10% of its Reality Labs staff to show the market they can be disciplined when they want to be.
Moving Forward: What to Watch
If you’re tracking the price of meta stock, the next big date on your calendar is January 28, 2026. That’s the next earnings call.
Everyone will be listening for two things. First, the 2026 CapEx guidance. If they announce a number higher than $110 billion, expect a sell-off. Second, any news on the "AI engineering agent" Zuckerberg has been teasing. He claims Meta is close to an AI that can code like a mid-level engineer. If that’s true, the cost-saving potential is mind-boggling.
Actionable Insights for Investors:
- Monitor the "Zuck-Spend": Keep a close eye on any revisions to capital expenditure. This is the primary driver of short-term price volatility right now.
- Watch Ad Monetization: As long as the ad business grows at 20%+, Meta can afford to experiment. If ad growth slows to single digits, the AI spending becomes a massive liability.
- Evaluate the "AI Pivot" Success: Look for third-party benchmarks on Llama 4's enterprise adoption. If businesses are actually using Meta's models, the "moat" is real.
- Check Reality Labs Losses: See if the recent 10% layoffs in this division actually translate to smaller quarterly losses.
The stock is currently in a "prove it" phase. It has the users and the revenue, but it needs to show that the $100 billion AI bet isn't just a repeat of the Metaverse hype cycle. Whether the price returns to $800 or sinks to $500 depends entirely on if Zuckerberg can turn "compute power" into "compound interest."