Analyst Sets Price Target for Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) Amid AI Investments

By Tony Dante22 Oct, 14:14From Financial Modeling Prep

Key points

Scotiabank analyst set a $650 price target for Meta Platforms, indicating a potential 6.8% downside from its trading price at the time.
Despite strong revenue from its core platforms like Facebook and Instagram, investor concerns over rising artificial intelligence (AI) spending impacted Meta's stock performance.
Meta's market capitalization stands at approximately $1.78 trillion, with recent trading showing a slight gain of 0.47%.

Scotiabank analyst Nat Schindler set a $650 price target for Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) on October 22, 2026. Meta traded at $697.52 when the target was published, putting the target about 6.8% below the share price. A stock price target is an analyst’s estimate of where a company's stock may trade in the future.

Meta runs social media platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. It earns much of its revenue from digital advertising and is investing heavily in artificial intelligence (AI). These AI investment costs matter to investors even when sales are strong: as highlighted by 24/7 Wall St., Meta fell 3% to $677.20 in morning trading after plans for higher AI spending overshadowed a strong quarter.

Meta’s quarterly revenue and financial guidance both exceeded expectations. Company guidance is the firm’s forecast for future results. Even so, Meta investors weighed growth in Muse against rising AI development costs, as highlighted by Reuters. The provided Reuters data does not give a share-price decline or further details.

Another stock price snapshot shows Meta at $697.52, up $3.27, or 0.47%. Shares traded between $690.10 and $713.22 during that session, compared with a range of $520.26 to $779.82 over the past year. Meta’s market capitalization—the value of all its outstanding shares—was approximately $1.78 trillion, with trading volume of about 26.5 million shares.