Yahoo Finance Meta (META) Beats Earnings Estimates and Announces First Ever Dividend is it Time to Buy?
Investors walked away from the busy investment week with a lot of news to digest including Meta Platforms META announcing its first-ever dividend after comfortably surpassing Q4 top and bottom-line expectations on Thursday.
Although the Fed shrugged off the plausibility of rate cuts in March this week and didn’t blow the cap off a potential broader rally; Meta’s stock soared in today’s trading session.
Q4 Showdown & Price Performance
Meta’s Q4 report capped off a week highlighted by big tech with Magnificent Seven peers Apple AAPL and Amazon AMZN also reporting their quarterly results yesterday evening as well. All were able to surpass their quarterly expectations but it was Meta who stole the show.
Accompanying its strong results, Meta declared its first cash dividend of $0.50 per share payable on March 26, 2024 to stockholders on record by the close of markets on February 22. Meta intends to pay its dividend quarterly going forward subject to market conditions and approval by its board of directors.
This fueled Meta’s stock in Friday’s trading session spiking over +20% with Amazon shares up +8% and Apple shares virtually flat after pairing an early morning dip. Notably, Meta’s stock has an “A” Zacks Style Scores grade for Momentum and has soared +38% over the last month.
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Meta’s stock has rallied over +150% in the last year and has continued to rally when the company beats earnings expectations which is now at five consecutive quarters as defined by the green arrows in the EPS surprise chart below.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Financial Results
Diving into Meta’s Q4 financial results, earnings of $5.33 per share topped the Zacks Consensus by 10% and soared 77% from $3.00 a share in the prior-year quarter. Quarterly sales of $40.11 billion climbed 25% year over year and came in 3% better than expected. It’s also noteworthy that Meta has now posted an average earnings surprise of 19.71% in its last four quarterly reports.
Meta currently has an “A” Zacks Style Scores grade for Growth and rounded-out fiscal 2023 with annual earnings increasing 51% to $14.87 per share versus $9.83 a share in 2022. Total sales increased 15% to $134.9 billion compared to $116.6 billion in 2022.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated Meta made a lot of progress in their vision for advancing artificial intelligence and the metaverse. The company expects its growth to be driven by investments in servers, including both AI and non-AI hardware in FY24 along with its new data center architecture.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Bottom Line
Meta Platforms stock currently sports a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) primarily attributed to the trend of positive annual earnings estimate revisions for FY24 over the last 30 days. This looks likely to continue after the company’s Q4 earnings beat and the initiation of a quarterly dividend does make a stronger argument for investors buying Meta’s stock at the moment.
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