New York, Feb 15, 2026, 10:31 ET — The market is closed.
- Meta slipped Friday, with megacap tech shares losing steam heading into the U.S. holiday break.
- Pinterest tumbled after issuing a disappointing outlook, drawing fresh attention to softness in digital ad demand.
- Tuesday brings traders back, eyes peeled for any new hints on ad spending or signs of the AI-fueled rivalry heating up.
Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (META.O) dropped 1.5% on Friday, landing at $639.77 by the closing bell. That left the Facebook owner with a market capitalization near $1.84 trillion.
That decline is notable, with Meta positioned squarely at the intersection of two forces moving stocks: ad spending and AI costs. Both are still in flux. Investors haven’t hesitated to hit the sell button and figure out the details after.
Markets swung back and forth after January’s inflation figures landed softer than forecasts. The S&P 500 nudged just 0.05% higher, while the Nasdaq Composite gave up 0.22%. With traders skittish ahead of Monday’s Presidents Day break, Rosenblatt Securities’ Michael James summed up the mood: “any whiff of optimism continues to get rejected” in large-cap tech. (Reuters)
Advertising names made waves of their own. Pinterest tumbled as much as 21% Friday, its guidance rattled by signals that big U.S. retailers are pulling back on ad budgets amid tariff jitters, according to Reuters. “Pinterest is constrained by legacy monetization models,” Zephirin Group CEO Lenny Zephirin said. Bernstein’s analysts, for their part, commented: “We’ll probably see AI-powered Pinterest clones from Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon soon.” (Reuters)
It’s a mixed bag for Meta investors. Sure, trouble for smaller platforms sometimes nudges brands onto the largest channels. Still, when retailers cut back on marketing, that softness ripples through the whole ad stack.
Meta’s stock moved with the broader tech pullback Friday. Apple dipped 0.5%, Alphabet also fell around 0.5%. Snap popped close to 6%, but Pinterest closed much weaker.
Here’s the catch for Meta: a weaker ad market doesn’t have to mean recession before sentiment sours. Should big retailers cut back on campaigns through March, pricing power might slip fast. Investors—already eyeing higher AI spend—have little appetite for more margin strain.
U.S. markets take a pause Monday, with the sector’s next test lining up for Tuesday’s open. Eyes are on whether the ad-warning chatter sticks to the smaller players or starts to seep into expectations for the giants.
