New York, June 18, 2026, 08:08 (EDT)
- Meta ended Wednesday at $567.58, down 5.4%, with early premarket trading showing a partial bounce before the Nasdaq open.
- Reuters reported Wednesday that Emily Dalton Smith, a Meta executive involved in its AI-for-work restructuring, is leaving the company.
- U.S. markets are open Thursday but will shut Friday for Juneteenth. That will push some derivatives expiry trading into today’s session.
Meta Platforms shares were up in premarket trading Thursday, recovering some losses after a steep fall. Investors balanced new concerns about challenges in the Facebook parent’s AI revamp with a wider rally in U.S. tech futures.
Shares ended Wednesday at $567.58, down 5.4%, cutting Meta’s market cap to roughly $1.46 trillion. Early premarket quotes had the stock near $575, but extended trading is light and prices may not stick once the regular session starts.
This matters because Meta’s AI effort is now about more than just products. It involves capital, staffing, and increasingly, whether investors will continue funding future computing power while the core ad business still drives profit.
Reuters reported Emily Dalton Smith, who managed product work for Meta’s internal AI tools, is leaving the company about two months after Meta said she would lead that effort. Her team developed Metamate, Meta’s enterprise AI assistant. This was part of a company restructuring involving a 10% workforce cut and shifting many employees to new roles. Dalton Smith had called Metamate the “starting point for all kinds of work.” Reuters
The latest exit comes after a tough few days at Meta. Mark Zuckerberg told employees the company had “made mistakes” in shifting to an AI workforce, Reuters reported last week. Separately, Wired said CTO Andrew Bosworth called the launch of the new AI division “atrocious” and said Meta would work on rebuilding trust and better communication. Reuters
Wall Street’s overall tone was firmer. Reuters said Nasdaq 100 futures rose 1.49% at 7:06 a.m. ET. S&P 500 and Dow futures were also up, helped by lower oil prices and hope for a U.S.-Iran deal that offset worries about a tougher Federal Reserve. “Triple witching” — the quarterly expiration of stock, index options and futures — can boost volume and volatility. This time it comes just before Friday’s Juneteenth market holiday. Reuters
Meta’s spending plan is still a drag. The company boosted its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $125 billion to $145 billion in April; capital expenditure covers costs for long-lived assets like data centers, servers, and chips. Meta reported first-quarter revenue of $56.31 billion, up 33%, with ad impressions rising 19% and average ad prices up 12%. Zuckerberg said at the time that Meta had “strong momentum across our apps.” Reuters
Analysts haven’t ruled out the ad business. Matt Britzman at Hargreaves Lansdown said Meta’s higher capital spending had “spooked investors” but might be overblown if the rise is just due to cost inflation, not a shift in plans. Gil Luria at D.A. Davidson was less optimistic, saying the results “failed to impress investors,” especially compared to stronger numbers from Google parent Alphabet. Reuters
The market story in a nutshell: Meta still sells ads on a scale few match, but investors have shifted focus from margin recovery to whether AI infrastructure will provide good returns. Alphabet is probably the closest peer combining ads and AI in this discussion; Nvidia, whose chips are behind much of the AI push, is the key supplier whose price moves often shape the other side of this trade.
There’s a tougher risk scenario. If AI costs rise faster than ad revenue, or if worker disruptions slow product development, Meta could face fresh investor backlash. Legal trouble is also ongoing: Source New Mexico reported Wednesday that state prosecutors asked a judge to order Meta to pay $953 million into a fund for youth mental health and public education, after a previous jury verdict against the company.
On Thursday, Meta needs to maintain the premarket bounce amid a session that could see unusual moves due to options trading and the upcoming long weekend. The key issue isn’t if Meta can grow its ad business, but whether investors trust the company to turn its AI investments into steady cash flow before costs rise further.
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