Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) has spent much of 2026 trading near $648, even as the underlying business continues to post record quarterly revenue figures.
Second-quarter revenue hit $60.8 billion, a 28% year-over-year increase, accompanied by a 31% operating margin, according to Meta’s earnings press release.
At a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 19, the stock trades at a discount to the S&P 500’s approximately 22 times forward earnings, a gap analysts argue reflects a meaningful mispricing.
Reaching the $900 target floated by the most bullish analysts on Wall Street would require roughly 39% upside from current trading levels.
Analyst Nowak maintains a $775 price target on Meta, expecting a new wave of AI products to lift earnings now that the company’s $18 billion legal settlement has cleared, according to a MarketBeat analysis.
His thesis centers on AI revenue streams the market has yet to fully price in, including agentic ad tools, subscriptions, and a neocloud computing business.
Those product lines could lift Meta’s EPS by more than $10, representing roughly a 34% increase over the company’s 2025 adjusted EPS of $29.68, or as much as 43% against GAAP EPS of $23.49, according to MarketBeat.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg framed the company’s AI strategy as a dual investment that simultaneously strengthens its core advertising engine while building entirely new commercial revenue lines.
The scale of that investment is substantial, with capital expenditures reaching $31.1 billion in Q2 2026, up 82% year over year, and full-year capex guidance set at $130 billion to $145 billion.
That spending compressed free cash flow to just $784 million last quarter, a sharp decline from $8.55 billion in the same period a year earlier.
Reality Labs continued to weigh on results, posting a $4.62 billion loss in Q2 2026, up from a $4.03 billion loss in the first quarter.
Meta carries a consensus “Strong Buy” rating from 62 analysts polled by S&P Global, with an average price target of $754.77, according to StockAnalysis.
Meta’s Connect 2026 event opens with a Zuckerberg keynote on September 23, where the company is expected to showcase its latest work in AI, AI glasses, and virtual reality.
Third-quarter earnings, due in late October, will offer the first concrete test of whether the company’s revenue growth has held through the second half of 2026.
How the stock responds to both events will ultimately reveal whether the market’s prolonged discount reflected justified caution or an early mispricing that Wall Street’s most bullish analysts identified ahead of the crowd.
