$230 billion? Facebook’s stock plunge brings big losses for Mark Zuckerberg, Meta – and maybe you
- Shares of the social media giant were down more than 26% Thursday.
- The New York State Common Retirement Fund lost $470 million.
- The California Public Employees Retirement System lost $440 million.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms, just did a face plant on Wall Street.
Shares of the social media giant were down more than 26% Thursday, the first day of trading after Meta reported a decline in profit and users during the last three months of 2021 – and most tellingly, forecast revenue declines in the current quarter.
Meta’s market value fell more than $230 billion to a market capitalization of about $661 billion. The company’s market cap had been $898.5 billion early Thursday.
The loss is the largest one-day decline in U.S. history, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Last summer, when the company was still known as Facebook, the company became only the fifth U.S. company to achieve a market value surpassing $1 trillion – the others being Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google parent Alphabet.
Facebook parent company Meta plunges, other tech stocks also stumble
FACEBOOK:Network is losing users for the first time ever and shares in Meta have fallen off a cliff
Meta Platforms’ shares closed Thursday at $237.76, down about 26%. The stock price was up more than 1% in aftermarket trading to $240.60.
Shares of Meta, which will change its trading symbol on Nasdaq from “FB” to “META” in the first half of this year, are down nearly 30% so far this year.
Facebook co-founder and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally lost nearly $32 billion Zuckerberg is the largest individual Meta shareholder, with more than 374.8 million shares, or about 12.5% of total shares outstanding, according to SP Global Market Intelligence.
Zuckerberg’s shares had been valued at $121 billion before the market opened Thursday. When the markets closed, his holdings were worth $89.1 billion.
Zuckerberg, who has been No. 7 on Bloomberg’s Billionaires, had already seen a decline of $4.9 billion in 2022.
Meta stock plummets, what some lost
Many of the top Meta shareholders who took losses, too, on Thursday will be familiar as many Americans have investments including 401(k) plans with them:
- The Vanguard Group, which holds 182.9 million shares, , saw its value drop to about $43.5 billion from $59 billion.
- BlackRock (nearly 155.9 million shares): down to $37.1 billion from about $50.4 billion.
- Capital Research and Management Co. (Capitol Group/American Funds; nearly 137 million shares): about $44.3 billion from about $32.6 billion
- FMR LLC (Fidelity Investments; 123.8 million shares): about $29.4 billion from about $40 billion.
- UBS Asset Management (20 million shares): about $4.8 billion from about $6.5 billion.
- Fisher Investments (7.6 million shares): about $1.8 billion from about $2.5 billion
- California Public Employees Retirement System (5.7 million): $1.36 billion from $1.8 billion.
- New York State Common Retirement Fund (5.47 million): $1.3 billion from $1.77 billion.
- Sheryl Sandberg, Meta COO (1.42 million shares): $337.6 million from $458.7 million.
- North Carolina Department of State Treasurer (1 million): 237.8 million from $323 million.
- Marc Andreessen, Meta independent director (44,434 shares): $10.6 million from $14.4 million.
- Peter Thiel, Meta independent director (12,947 shares): $3 million from $4.2 million.
Facebook faces ‘unprecedented’ competition
During Wednesday’s earnings report, Meta reported that Facebook’s daily active users had fallen for the first time: 1.929 billion daily active users compared to 1.93 billion in the previous quarter.
Zuckerberg said competition from other social media platforms including viral video-sharing app Tiktok is “having an impact on our business.”
Zuckerberg echoed that sentiment during an all-hands virtual meeting, saying the company faced an “unprecedented level of competition,” Bloomberg reported, citing a person who attended but was not authorized to speak publicly about it,
He also said the company’s weak revenue forecast for the current quarter triggered the historic stock decline, Bloomberg reported.
That forecast of slowed revenue growth “was a headline grabber and not in a good way,” wrote Michael Nathanson of investment research firm MoffettNathanson in a note to investors Thursday.
Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @mikesnider.