Yorkville Ives Affirms Outperform on Meta, $920 Price Target

Yorkville Ives analyst Dan Ives reiterated an Outperform rating and $920 price target on Meta Platforms Inc.

(NASDAQ: META).

“The Street should not be surprised.

The new Class C is a funding lever, and management said on the 3Q26 call that it adds financing flexibility while preserving voting control and that it had no specific plans yet; five days later it does.

Meta generated $97 billion of operating cash flow through the first three quarters of 2026, but capex including finance leases consumed $85.8 billion of it, free cash flow turned negative at ($2.12) billion in 3Q26, and the $135 billion to $145 billion 2026 guide implies roughly $50 billion to $60 billion more in 4Q26 alone, with management committed to continued aggressive investment.

The debt leg has already been used: long-term debt rose from $28.8 billion at the end of 3Q25 to $80.9 billion at the end of 3Q26, leaving quarter-end cash and marketable securities of $82.4 billion almost exactly offset and net cash of $1.5 billion before the current portion of debt.

Meta now frames the mix as operating cash flow, IG debt at Aa3/AA-, strategic partnerships, and equity, which trades mid-single-digit dilution for less of the leverage we flagged as the first risk to our price target.

The capital goes to the constraint management identified on the call, compute rather than demand for Muse, which onboarded more than 10 million U.S. and Canadian users in its early weeks, on top of an advertising engine that has grown revenue more than 20% y/y for six consecutive quarters.

We view today’s announcement as execution of a plan telegraphed last week rather than a change in the story, and we maintain our OUTPERFORM rating and $920 price target.

Meta is in prime position to further build out its AI footprint and the Street is still underestimating its growth potential in our view.”

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