Meta Stock (META): Reality Labs Losses, Capex and the Class C Plan

Michael Whitman · Trading since 2017, full-time since 2020 · YouTube creator, 137K subscribers · Published 2026-11-07

Meta stock trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker META. It is the Class A share of Meta Platforms, the company that changed its name from Facebook, Inc. on October 28, 2021; the ticker moved from FB to META on June 9, 2022. Almost all of its money still comes from one place: ads shown to the 3.64 billion people a day who used at least one of its apps in September 2026, by the company’s count.

The price reflects that ad engine, but three other things now pull on it: a reality-hardware unit that has never made a profit, a data-center build that is eating most of the cash, and a new non-voting share class arriving in 2027. Quote pages show none of the three, so we took them from Meta’s filings.

META at a glance: a $1.56 trillion ad business

Price is the November 6, 2026 close. Earnings, revenue and equity come from the 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, filed October 22, and the 10-K for 2025. Meta’s fiscal year is the calendar year.

From the last close of 2025 ($660.09) to November 6 the stock fell 7.57%, while the S&P 500 rose 7.76%. Its record close is $790.00 on August 12, 2025; at $610.15 it sat 22.8% below that. Over the past year it closed as low as $525.72 (March 27, 2026) and as high as $777.59 (September 24, 2026).

How it works: one segment pays for the other

Meta reports two segments. Family of Apps is Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp and related services. Reality Labs is the virtual and augmented reality consumer hardware, software and content.

In the September 2026 quarter, Family of Apps brought in $64.16 billion of the $64.60 billion total, 99.3%. Ads alone were $63.06 billion, which is the 97.6% in the summary above. Reality Labs sold $0.44 billion and lost $4.13 billion.

Family of Apps earned $17.12 billion from operations that quarter, down from $24.97 billion a year earlier. The fall came from the legal charge, which Meta booked inside that segment: $9.89 billion tied to an August 2026 agreement with 52 attorneys general over teen mental health and social media, which provides for payments of up to about $18.59 billion, about $12.7 billion of it in yearly installments over ten years. Total revenue still grew 26.1%.

Zuckerberg’s votes and the coming Class C shares

Three share classes, soon. META is the Class A stock, with one vote a share. Class B shares are not listed and carry ten votes each; the 10-Q says Mark Zuckerberg controls a majority of the voting power.

On October 21, 2026 Meta announced a third class: non-voting Class C common stock, with the new charter effective January 19, 2027. Every Class A and Class B share is to receive one Class C share as a stock dividend, on dates the board has not yet set. Meta’s release says it expects the Class A price to “reflect the effect of a two-for-one stock split” once the dividend is paid, and that voting power will not change. Our stock split page covers what a split does and does not change.

The original data: $100.85 billion of Reality Labs losses

Reality Labs, added up. Meta first split out the two segments in its 2021 annual report, with figures back to 2019. We took each year’s Reality Labs operating loss as first reported.

• Year by year: $4.50 billion lost in 2019, then $6.62 billion, $10.19 billion, $13.72 billion, $16.12 billion and $17.73 billion, and $19.19 billion in 2025. The first nine months of 2026 lost $12.78 billion.
• In total: $100.85 billion of operating losses, against $13.60 billion of Reality Labs revenue over the same period.
• Per dollar of sales: in 2025 the unit lost $8.70 for every $1 of revenue ($19.19 billion against $2.21 billion).
• Who pays: from 2019 to 2025 Family of Apps earned $419.84 billion from operations, and Reality Labs lost $88.08 billion, 21.0% of it.

Meta’s data-center spending against revenue

Capital spending against revenue, 2012-2026. This is the cash-flow line for purchases of property and equipment, which the 10-Q ties mainly to servers, data centers and network infrastructure. It leaves out principal payments on finance leases, which Meta adds in its own “capital expenditures” figure: $34.91 billion in the September 2026 quarter, against $33.94 billion on our line.

• The low point: 14.1% of revenue in 2015 ($2.52 billion), and 14.7% in 2014.
• The 2022 jump: 27.0% of revenue, when sales slipped and spending rose to $31.43 billion. It eased to 20.2% in 2023.
• 2025: $69.69 billion, 34.7% of revenue and 60.2% of operating cash flow.
• January to September 2026: $83.06 billion, up 71.9% on the same months of 2025, which is 45.7% of revenue and 85.7% of the $96.87 billion of operating cash flow.

Where the cash went instead. Meta bought back $174.0 billion of its own stock from 2017 to 2025, including $44.54 billion in 2021. In the first nine months of 2026 it bought back none, against $26.25 billion a year earlier. Its first dividend, $0.50 a quarter, was declared in February 2024, and it rose to $0.525 in 2025, where it stayed in 2026. Our stock buybacks page explains how a buyback returns cash.

The two datasets are free to download: Reality Labs and capex and earnings-day moves. Reuse is fine with a credit and a link, under our data license.

A worked example: what is inside the 20.8x

All inputs are in the 10-Q filed October 22, 2026 and the 2025 10-K, except the share price.

1. Trailing earnings. Diluted EPS was $20.44 for January to September 2026, $23.49 for 2025 and $14.62 for January to September 2025. Last twelve months = $20.44 + $23.49 − $14.62 = $29.31.
2. P/E. $610.15 ÷ $29.31 = 20.8. The P/E ratio page covers the arithmetic.
3. Market value. 2,214,472,367 Class A plus 341,768,886 Class B shares = 2,556,241,253, and × $610.15 = $1.56 trillion.
4. Sales and book. Trailing revenue is $181.71 billion + $200.97 billion − $141.07 billion = $241.61 billion, so the price is 6.46 times sales. Equity of $272.39 billion is $106.56 a share, so the price is 5.73 times book.
5. Yield. $0.525 × 4 = $2.10 a year; $2.10 ÷ $610.15 = 0.34%.

The trailing year holds one-off items Meta named in its releases: an $8.03 billion tax benefit in the March 2026 quarter, $2.40 billion of legal charges and $1.18 billion of severance in June, and the $9.89 billion charge in September. A year earlier the window held a $15.93 billion tax charge instead, which is one reason the P/E at the November 6, 2025 close ($618.94) was 27.4x on trailing EPS of $22.60. Each multiple mixes ongoing profit with items that will not repeat, so the same price can read as cheap or dear depending on the year.

META on results days: 58 reports since 2012

Meta reports after the 4 p.m. New York close. We matched each quarterly results filing since its first, in July 2012, to the next session’s close-to-close move: 58 releases in all. Other days are counted from July 26, 2012, the first results day.

• The median move was 5.63%, against 1.13% on the other 3,533 trading days, about five times as large.
• 33 of the 58 moved 5% or more and 17 moved 10% or more; only 3.3% of other days moved 5% or more.
• Direction: 31 were up (53.4%), against a 52.3% up-rate on other days. That gap is within chance (two-sided binomial p = 0.90).
• The extremes are all earnings days. The three largest one-day falls since the 2012 listing were −26.39% (February 3, 2022), −24.56% (October 27, 2022) and −18.96% (July 26, 2018). The three largest rises were +29.61% (July 25, 2013), +23.28% (February 2, 2023) and +20.32% (February 2, 2024).
• Lately: since 2022 the median move was 9.48% across 20 releases, half of them 10% or more. After a +10.40% move on January 29, 2026, the next three were −8.55%, −7.95% and −6.98% (October 22, 2026).

When it fails: ads at 97.6% of revenue and rising legal bills

A giant can still fall three-quarters. Between its September 2021 record close and its November 2022 low the stock lost about three-quarters of its value. What that did to a real stake, and how long the recovery took, is worked out on our invested $1,000 in Meta page; the drawdown page explains the measure.

One customer group, one product. With ads at 97.6% of revenue, a slowdown in ad budgets or a change in how ads can be targeted reaches almost the whole business at once. Our concentration risk page covers why a single source of revenue matters.

Legal costs are now large and uneven. Beyond the attorneys general agreement, the 10-Q says a New Mexico court on October 21, 2026 imposed a $25 billion civil penalty, with 15% post-judgment interest, after a jury verdict in September. Meta says it has accrued an amount and intends to appeal. Other youth-related trials are still scheduled.

Spending can run ahead of cash. Meta’s own measure of free cash flow was negative $2.12 billion in the September 2026 quarter, by its release. A business that spends 85.7% of its operating cash on property has little left over in a bad quarter. The free cash flow page explains that measure.

The numbers here go stale. Price, ratios and the latest-quarter lines change with each close and filing, which is why every figure is dated.

Questions people ask

What is Meta’s market cap?

$1.56 trillion at the November 6, 2026 close of $610.15, counting both Class A and Class B shares from the 10-Q cover, dated October 16. The market cap page explains why the share count matters.

Does Meta pay a dividend?

Yes, since 2024. It declared $0.525 a share for the September 2026 quarter, the same as each quarter of 2025, after $0.50 a quarter in 2024. At that rate the yield is 0.34%. The dividend yield page shows the sum.

Is Meta stock splitting?

Not as a classic split. Meta plans to issue one non-voting Class C share for each Class A and Class B share after its new charter takes effect on January 19, 2027, and says the Class A price should then reflect a two-for-one split. The record and payment dates had not been set as of the October 22, 2026 10-Q.

How much has Reality Labs lost?

$100.85 billion of operating losses from 2019 to September 30, 2026, by our sum of Meta’s segment filings, including $19.19 billion in 2025 alone.

Is Meta one of the Magnificent Seven?

Yes. The Magnificent Seven page measures all seven against the S&P 500 from 2015, including the depth of each one’s worst fall.

Related

The ratios used above are explained on earnings per share and price-to-book. For how far the stock swings compared with the market, see volatility. If you hold Meta through a technology or communication fund, sector funds covers what that concentration means for the rest of the portfolio.

This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money.