5 Best 52-Week Low Stocks To Buy Now

4. Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META)

Number of Hedge Fund Shareholders: 184

1-Year Share Price Decline: 67%

Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) shares have crashed to a 7-year low as the social media giant’s disastrous, money-losing foray into the metaverse continues to erode investors’ confidence in the company in general, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in particular, who can’t be ousted from his role thanks to his outsized voting power.

Meta’s Reality Labs (metaverse) division had its worst quarter yet in Q3, losing more money ($3.67 billion) while simultaneously pulling in less revenue ($285 million) than it has in any other quarter over the past two years. Meta’s capital expenditures have nearly doubled from a year-ago to $22.8 billion with Q4 still to come, and Zuckerberg expects Reality Labs to suffer even bigger losses in 2023 as he doubles down on the metaverse. Meta’s advertising and overall revenue also fell year-over-year during Q3. On the bright side, Meta’s short-form video platform Reels has grown plays by 50% over the last six months to 140 billion.

Though Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) is still the fourth-most popular stock among hedge funds, there’s been a massive smart money exodus from the company over the last year. All told, there’s been a 32% decline in the number of funds long META since mid-2021. Michael Platt and William Reeves’ BlueCrest Capital Mgmt. and Louis Bacon’s Moore Global Investments are just some of the funds that have sold off META during the past four quarters.

Weitz Investment likes the more cautious approach Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) is taking with its expense management and investments, as revealed in the fund’s Q3 2022 investor letter:

“Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META) was the portfolio’s top year-to-date detractor. Fears of a recession and a resultant pullback in ad spending have added insult to injury as Meta attempts to gain traction with its short-form video product called Reels. Meta’s progress in monetizing Reels and the heavyweight bout with video-sharing app TikTok for consumers’ attention are clearly the main event, but we are also encouraged that, behind the scenes, management is taking a more disciplined approach to investing and expense management. Investors looking for greater detail on Meta are encouraged to read equity analyst Jon Baker’s Analyst Corner feature from earlier this year.”