Raymond James Lowers Meta Price Target to $800

Raymond James analyst Josh Beck lowered the price target on Meta (NASDAQ: META) to $800.00 (from $825.00) while maintaining a Strong Buy rating.

“The Call: Application of frontier ML/DL to content and ad stack recommendation has been world-class supported by our recent positive checks (LINK) prompting above Street estimates with RJ now modeling 20%/19% top-line growth in 2026/2027 vs.

Street at 18%/16% also triangulated by our bottom-up build of Core vs.

High Growth Surfaces (i.e., Reels, C2M, Threads). ● Meta remains an AI Tweener in our AI Stack framework as we look for increased progress with the next Llama/TBD Model release (possibly dual proprietary/open source strategy emerges), Meta AI utilization/Business AI diffusion and/or AI Content/Devices.

Meta is somewhat of an awkward phase as top-line strength is offset by a likely uptick in expenses/ capex, which prompts a slightly lower price target of $800 based on 23x 2027 P/E as we see AI progress as the primary factor influencing the multiple over the next year.

Re: bogeys, we believe 4Q25 revenues $60B+ (24%+ y/y growth) and a 1Q26 outlook of $51-53B (23% y/y MP growth) would clear buyside expectations while a total expense outlook of $150-155B and capex in the $110-120B range could possibly be higher than buyside creating a fairly neutral setup into the print given AI Stack progress is still a WIP and the recent 9% bounce from YTD lows.

Re: catalysts, a breakthrough with Llama/TBD model release that approaches other proprietary models, a steep ramp in Meta AI/Business AI monetization and/or a strategic shift towards entering the public cloud market (enhanced fungibility) could rapidly change the narrative in our view.”

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