Meta Platforms stock bounced back with gains Friday following an otherwise down week. Shares of the social media giant are hovering near their 21-day moving average.
The gains follow reports that Meta has struck a $10 billion deal with Google parent company Alphabet to rent cloud computing capacity from Alphabet. It is a strong day overall for the Nasdaq and tech stocks. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's speech in Jackson Hole raised hopes for a September rate cut.
Meta stock is ahead 2% at 754.55 in recent action on the stock market today. Shares of the Facebook parent company had slipped 6% for the week heading into Friday trading, setting Meta stock on a course for its worst week since April. That is likely to still be true, but Meta has pared its weekly loss to about 4% overall.
Investors pumped the brakes on Meta's rally following reports it is reorganizing its AI division and freezing AI-related hiring. Optimism that Meta's huge AI spending will unlock growth for its core advertising business has powered a rally for the tech giant's shares in recent weeks. But it was a down week overall for AI stocks, prior to Friday.
Meta appeared to push back on some reports late Thursday. Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang said on X that the company is "truly only investing more and more into Meta Superintelligence Labs." Further, Meta hired another top AI executive from Apple, Bloomberg reported. The report added, however, that Meta is still "slowing its recruitment" after a recent hiring spree for its AI divisions.
The Google deal appears to give Meta even more computing power as it scales up its own data centers, including one that Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg called Manhattan-sized.
Meta Stock Retakes 21-Day
Friday's gains show Meta stock bouncing up from its 50-day moving average and surpassing it 21-day line after falling below the key short-term support level Thursday.
Overall Meta stock remains ahead by more than 28.5% year to date. That trails only Nvidia and its 29.8% year-to-date gain for best performance this year among Magnificent Seven stocks.
