Meta Plunges After Capex Forecast Hiked Again, But Revenue Guidance Misses Bad

In our preview of Meta we said that according to JPM, the key things the market would be looking for are the following:

• (i) Will META raise 2026 capex guide & what is the ROIC profile of heavy AI spend?
• (ii) How will Meta leverage Muse Spark models across its FOA & newer AI products? What is the timing of Watermelon launch?
• (iii) When will META layer LLMs into ad models?
• (iv) Can Advertising grow mid-high 20%’s in 2H?
• (v) What is the state of advertising budgets & impact from Middle East conflict?
• (vi) What is the monetization potential of subscriptions & business agents?
• (vii) Will Meta operate a neocloud business?
• (viii) What is the potential of API monetization?
• (ix) Will AI Mode create incremental ad surfaces?