The current period has brought many positive developments for Meta Platforms, which has pleased the investors. The company delivered strong fourth quarter results for 2025, which included 24% revenue growth, while its earnings exceeded Wall Street predictions as well.
The market reacted to the news by increasing share prices, which supported the belief that Meta had regained its position after experiencing several challenging years.
Stock Moves in Cycles
Meta’s stock has shown remarkable results, which attracted attention from investors. The stock price has increased by 387% during the last three years, which has transformed long-term investors into enthusiastic supporters. Yet the extended Meta stock chart shows a pattern that repeats itself.
The stock experienced 26% decline during 2018, but it recovered for the next three consecutive years. The stock market experienced another collapse and fell 64% in 2022, but it recovered with another extended upward trend. If historical patterns continue to repeat themselves, then 2026 will experience an upcoming market decline. A market pause or decline after a major market uptrend would not surprise anyone at this point.
Spending Spree That Has Investors Nervous
Meta has created a more serious problem through its increasing capital spending, which the executives now view as their main financial issue. The management team plans to allocate funds between $115 billion and $135 billion for the current fiscal year, which marks a significant increase from the $72 billion that was budgeted for 2025, and a substantial difference from the $19 billion spending in 2021.
Mark Zuckerberg believes in artificial intelligence technology, he invests in building large data centers through the Meta Compute project, while he works on creating the Avocado AI language model.
The vision that Zuckerberg described to others aims to create nothing less than “personal superintelligence”, which will be bold, ambitious, and expensive. Investors will lose their patience when the AI market starts to decline, because they need immediate returns.
Bulls Still Have a Case
The unexpected spending increase has created a market value drop for Meta, but it still permits investors to maintain their bullish outlook. The stock has a forward price-to-earnings ratio of approximately 24.8, which investors consider appropriate based on the company’s revenue expansion and profit development.
The market value of Meta does not reflect its value as a high-risk investment, which creates assurance for investors when the company’s performance achieves only satisfactory results. The current price of Meta stock has not yet reached the level that would qualify it as an overpriced investment.
Bottom Line
It is possible that Meta’s stock may experience a decline during 2026. The stock price will experience a real possibility of decline due to past rally patterns and current high AI funding. The company’s fundamental strengths and its current valuation will cause any future drop to appear as a temporary pause instead of a complete market loss.
At the moment, Meta possesses three advantages, which includes its current business momentum, financial resources, and its organizational growth goals, which the market sometimes uses to control its progress.