Suncoast Equity managing director and co-portfolio manager Eric Lynch weighed in on Meta Platform Inc.‘s (NASDAQ:META) recent stock decline amid investor skepticism about the company’s capital expenditure (capex) guidance for the year.

Lynch, in a recent conversation with Yahoo Finance on Sunday, suggested that investors are wary of a potential increase in capex due to CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg‘s AI push. This skepticism has led to a 4.6% drop in Meta’s stock this year.

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Despite these concerns, Lynch expressed his confidence in Meta’s growth, noting that the company’s revenue increased by 26% in the last quarter. He anticipates a similar performance in Q4, attributing this growth to Meta’s strategic focus on implementing AI across all its properties.

Lynch also addressed the impact of Meta’s aspirational spending levels on its stock performance, suggesting that the company’s recent stock declines at a P/E of 20 are largely “self-inflicted.” He believes that if Meta can demonstrate a reduction in its capex related to AI aspirations, the stock could see a significant upturn.

“The stock is really going to run at just 18 to 20 times earnings for forward earnings,” stated Lynch.

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Meta’s stock performance is a topic of significant interest in the market, especially given the recent decline in most of the Magnificent Seven stocks in 2026, after outperforming the broader market for most of the past three months

Besides Meta, Shares of Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) have declined, while only Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) have managed to buck the downturn.

Meanwhile, some analysts are bullish on Meta’s future, with a predicted 77% surge in stock value due to the company’s strategic AI-focused initiatives. Rosenblatt analyst Barton Crockett said Meta’s recent headline-making moves appear intentional, aimed at advancing the company’s data center expansion and artificial general intelligence (AGI) goals.

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