Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) heads into its second-quarter earnings report next week under pressure, with shares slipping Wednesday as investors weighed persistent concerns over the company’s heavy AI spending despite Wall Street expecting another quarter of strong growth.
Wedbush Securities analysts Ygal Arounian and Chase Tohanczyn maintained a Neutral rating and a 12-month price forecast of $671 on the stock.
Meta has a consensus price forecast of $825.49 among 38 analysts. Wall Street expects the company to report quarterly earnings of $7.18 per share on revenue of $60.22 billion.
Capex Guidance and Superintelligence Spend
Wedbush noted that capital expenditure remains a key focus for investors. Ahead of the print, Wedbush estimates Meta’s 2026 capex at $138 billion, up 98% year over year, broadly in line with the consensus estimate of $139 billion, up 100%. Both estimates fall within management’s current guidance range of $125 billion to $145 billion.
Wedbush estimates 2027 capex at $173 billion, compared to consensus estimates of $175 billion, noting that buy-side expectations are already above $200 billion for 2027.
Advertising Business Health
Wedbush expects continued strength in Meta’s core advertising business, supported by product improvements and a solid macro environment. Second-quarter guidance called for 26% year-over-year revenue growth, down from 33% growth in the first quarter of 2026 due to 600 basis points tougher comparisons.
AI-driven ad improvements continue to yield benefits, specifically through compute efficiency improvements in Andromeda, enhancements to Lattice modeling, and the GEM model architecture.
AI Monetization Strategy
Outside of the core advertising stack, Wedbush indicated that initiatives such as Meta AI/Muse Spark, Business AI, subscription tiers, a potential cloud offering and custom silicon remain early-stage.
The analysts wrote: “The gap between capex intensity and diversified monetization remains the central debate for the stock (although strength in the core ad business is certainly a positive), in our view, and the reason we remain on the sidelines despite Meta’s valuation discount to peers.”
Business AI Developments
In June at Conversations 2026, Meta debuted the Meta Business Agent and Meta Business Agent Platform across WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram.
Wedbush reported that weekly conversations in early versions of Business AI expanded 10-fold from 1 million to 10 million since the beginning of the year, though direct monetization has not yet begun.
META Stock Price Activity: Meta Platforms shares were down 2.7% at $626.38 at the time of publication on Wednesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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