Meta stock: what is actually going on

Meta Platforms has been the best performer among the Magnificent Seven in September, lifted by Muse, the personal AI agent it launched on September 8. It is also the company whose last quarter showed the starkest trade-off in big tech: revenue up 28%, operating profit down 8%, and free cash flow of just $784 million on $60.8 billion of sales. This page explains what Meta earns money from, what the last quarter showed, and what is moving the shares. Every figure comes from Meta's filings or exchange data, with the date attached.

Where the money comes from

In the second quarter ended June 30, 2026, Meta's revenue was $60.8 billion, up 28% from a year earlier. It reports two segments:

• Family of Apps (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp): $60.37 billion, about 99.3% of revenue. Of that, advertising was $59.36 billion, about 98% of Meta's total, up 27%. Other revenue, mainly business messaging and paid services, was $1.0 billion.
• Reality Labs (VR headsets, AI glasses and related software): $431 million, about 0.7% of revenue.

Family of Apps earned $23.39 billion of operating income. Reality Labs lost $4.62 billion, about $10.70 for every dollar of revenue, which we covered when Meta priced its new VR glasses at $1,299. Put simply, Meta is an advertising business that funds everything else.

The ad growth came from both volume and price. Ad impressions rose 14% and the average price per ad rose 12%. Meta counted 3.60 billion daily active people across its apps in June, up only 3%, but average revenue per person rose 24% to $16.86 for the quarter. Meta is growing by earning more from the same users, not by finding many new ones.

The share price and the size of the company

Meta's shares traded at $724.58 at 12:30 p.m. New York time on Monday, September 28, 2026, down $27.08, or 3.6%, from Friday's close of $751.66, according to Nasdaq data. The Nasdaq-100 fund QQQ was down 0.7% at the same time. Nasdaq puts Meta's market value at about $1.85 trillion. The 52-week range is $520.26 to $779.82. The annual dividend is $2.10 a share, a yield of about 0.28%, and the latest quarterly payment was due today.

The part the headlines skip

Meta closed 2025 at $660.09, so at Monday's price it is up about 10% this year. QQQ is up about 20% over the same stretch. Almost all of Meta's gain came in one month. The stock closed August at $572.34 and is now about 27% above that. It hit a record close of $777.59 on September 24, the day after its Connect event, and is now about 7% below it. Before Muse, the story was very different: Meta fell 8% the day after its second-quarter report, from $585.61 to $539.03.

As we showed last week, September's megacap rally was mostly Meta. So a pullback in this one stock matters for anyone holding a cap-weighted tech fund.

The last reported quarter

Meta reported second-quarter results on July 29, 2026:

• Revenue: $60.80 billion, up 28%, or 27% in constant currency.
• Costs and expenses: $42.03 billion, up 55%. Research and development alone rose 67% to $21.66 billion.
• Operating income: $18.78 billion, down 8%, a 31% margin against 43% a year earlier.
• Net income: $15.85 billion, or $6.18 a diluted share, down from $7.14.
• Capital spending, including finance lease payments: $31.08 billion.
• Free cash flow: $784 million, against $8.55 billion a year earlier.
• Headcount: 75,472, down 1%. That still includes about 8,000 people cut in May, most of whom Meta said would be gone from the count by the end of the third quarter.

The number behind the 8% drop. Two one-off items sat in the costs: $2.40 billion of charges for legal proceedings and $1.18 billion of severance for the May layoffs. Add them back and operating income would have been about $22.4 billion, up roughly 9%, with a margin near 37%. That is our arithmetic, not a figure Meta reports. It means the core business is still growing profits, but more slowly than sales, because AI spending is climbing faster than revenue.

The number that matters more. Meta generated $31.86 billion of cash from operations and spent $31.08 billion on capital projects. That is about 98 cents of every operating dollar going straight back into data centers and equipment. Meta bought back no stock in the first half of 2026, after $22.9 billion in the first half of 2025, and $25.03 billion of buyback authorization sits unused. In May it sold $25 billion of new bonds in six series, with coupons from 4.55% to 6.45%, and long-term debt reached $83.66 billion at June 30, up from $58.74 billion at the end of 2025.

What is driving the stock right now

1. Muse. Meta's agent handles tasks such as shopping or managing a calendar rather than just answering questions. CNBC reported that it overtook ChatGPT as the top free iOS app. The launch and Connect event sent the stock up almost 13% last week, and up 11% in a single day on September 21. Not everyone welcomed it. Amazon blocked Muse from buying on its site, and bank, broker and insurer stocks fell on the idea that agents could move customers' money for them.

2. A new business line, announced today. Meta said on Monday it is launching Meta Enterprise Platform to sell its AI to companies, starting with the Muse agent, Meta Business Agent, the Muse API and a coding tool called Muse Code. It hired MongoDB chief executive CJ Desai to run it, reporting to Zuckerberg. MongoDB shares fell sharply on the news. Meta gave no revenue target and no pricing.

3. Why it is down today. CNBC reported that Meta slipped before the open as AI-related stocks sold off broadly, following last week's gain. The same report noted the 10-year Treasury yield crossing 5.2%. We found no company-specific negative news behind Monday's drop. After a 27% run in four weeks, a fall of 3.6% on a weak day for the AI trade is not in itself a signal.

Who this hits outside Wall Street

Meta's $59.4 billion of quarterly ad revenue is, in large part, paid by small advertisers. Meta says it helps "hundreds of millions of businesses reach customers." CheckThisBiz lists 7,704,724 independent US businesses, chains excluded, and for many of the salons, restaurants and contractors among them, Instagram and Facebook are the ad budget. The filing shows the average price per ad rose 12% from a year earlier. At that rate, the same spend buys about 11% fewer ads: an owner spending $1,000 a month gets the reach that about $893 bought a year ago. That is an average across all of Meta's advertisers, not a rate card, and prices vary by market and audience. Meta's new Business Agent is the product pitched at those same owners.

The bear case, stated fairly

The spending has barely started. Meta expects 2026 capital spending of $130 billion to $145 billion. It spent about $50.9 billion in the first half, which implies roughly $40 billion to $47 billion a quarter for the rest of the year, well above the $31.9 billion of operating cash it generated in the second quarter. Unless cash flow rises fast, more borrowing or a smaller cash pile is the likely result.

Nobody knows yet whether Muse makes money. The rally rests on a free consumer product with paid tiers and a newly announced enterprise unit with no disclosed revenue. Reality Labs shows how long Meta will fund a bet that loses money.

Legal costs are real and recurring. Meta took $2.40 billion of legal charges in the second quarter, and its outlook warned that youth-related trials "may ultimately result in a material loss." On September 25, a New Mexico jury found Meta misled users; the penalty has not been set.

Growth is price, not people. Daily users grew 3%. If advertisers push back on 12% higher prices, there is not much user growth underneath to make up for it.

What we are watching

• Third-quarter results. Nasdaq, citing Zacks Investment Research, estimates November 4, 2026, based on an algorithm rather than a company announcement, with a consensus of $6.39 a share from 12 analysts. Meta has not confirmed the date. Its own guidance is revenue of $61 billion to $64 billion, and full-year expenses of $165 billion to $169 billion. Watch whether the capex range moves again and whether Meta says anything about Muse revenue.
• The El Paso data center deal. Meta's 10-Q says it expected to close in the third quarter a venture in which it holds 20%, contributing about $2.3 billion of assets and receiving a one-time distribution of about $1 billion. That kind of partner financing is one way Meta could spread the cost of its buildout.
• The New Mexico penalty and the other state youth cases Meta says are scheduled through 2027.
• Rates. Meta is now a regular bond issuer, and yields are the highest in years. See our coverage of the Fed's September decision and live levels on the markets page. Related: what is going on with Alphabet stock and Amazon stock.

Sources: Meta second-quarter 2026 results release, July 29, 2026; Meta Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026; Meta Newsroom, Launching Meta Enterprise Platform, September 28, 2026; CNBC and CNBC, September 28, 2026; Nasdaq quote, summary, historical price and earnings-date data for META and historical data for QQQ, retrieved 12:30 p.m. ET, September 28, 2026; CheckThisBiz business counts. Revenue shares, margins, adjusted operating income, growth rates and share-price moves are our calculations from the figures cited. This page is updated as the numbers change. This is market information, not investment advice.