Thanks for signing up for DividendStocks.com! It's the daily newsletter built for dividend and income investors. Before we can begin sending your daily updates, there’s one quick step left. Please confirm your subscription using the link below so our emails reach your inbox. Click Here to Confirm Your Subscription to DividendStocks.com Here’s a small glimpse of what you’ll get access to: Dividend Stock Ideas — Each newsletter features dividend stocks with high yields, sustainable payouts, and strong growth potential. Ex-Dividend Stocks — Want to capture upcoming dividend payouts? Find out which stocks are going ex-dividend this week. Market News and Events — Stay in the loop on the latest developments impacting popular dividend names like AT&T, Exxon Mobil, IBM, Procter & Gamble, and Verizon. Bonus: As a thank-you for confirming, you’ll also receive a free PDF copy of Automatic Income, our popular guide to building wealth through dividend investing. Let’s get your dividend journey started! Discover Top Income-Generating Stocks Here See you in your inbox soon,
The DividendStocks.com Team P.S. Don’t miss out click here to verify your subscription and secure your daily dividend insights and your free investing guide!
Today's Featured Story Meta Platforms Posted Its Fastest Growth Guide in Years—Now What?Written by Leo Miller. Article Posted: 2/3/2026. 
Article Highlights - Meta's latest earnings report swayed many investors, as shares rose by a double-digit percentage the next day.
- The company's Q1 2026 guidance implies growth that the company has not seen in years, especially when adjusting for pandemic-driven abnormalities.
- Updated price targets imply +20% upside ahead, with one particularly bullish forecast projecting +50% gains.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) delivered a very strong Q4 2025 earnings report. It comfortably beat estimates for revenue and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) in its Jan. 28 release, and showed notable underlying improvements in its business. The Magnificent Seven company's outlook was particularly intriguing. Despite forecasting a rapid rise in spending in 2026, Meta projected that sales would increase by 30% in Q1 2026 — the firm's fastest growth rate since Q3 2021. Wall Street analysts have taken notice, with many raising their price targets as they reassess the stock. Growth at Scale: Putting Meta's 30% Guidance in Context A former hedge fund manager who made $274 million in profits for his clients says "yes."
How? With something he calls "Skim Codes."
You just type the code into a regular brokerage account. Get the full breakdown now for free As noted, Meta has not posted 30% growth since Q3 2021—more than four years ago. That fact alone helps explain why the company's guidance for the next quarter stands out. A closer look, though, makes the outlook even more impressive. Many companies' 2021 results were distorted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Because 2020 was an unusually weak year as the economy shut down, year-over-year comparisons into 2021 produced elevated growth rates. Meta's sales rose almost 22% in 2020, which at the time was the company's slowest growth rate since at least 2015. With pent-up demand lifting revenues in 2021, comparisons to 2020 created an easier growth hurdle. Given that abnormality, it's useful to consider Meta's guidance against a pre-pandemic baseline. Excluding 2020 and 2021, Meta has not achieved a 30% growth rate since Q4 2018 — roughly seven years ago. That is notable because as a company's revenue base grows, maintaining very high percentage growth becomes more difficult: each incremental dollar represents a smaller share of a larger total. Achieving 30% growth next quarter would put Meta's revenue near $55 billion. By contrast, when the company generated 30% growth in Q4 2018, total revenue was about $16.9 billion. That gap underscores how much larger Meta's opportunity set is today: the company is projecting near three times the revenue yet believes it can sustain similar percentage growth. Meta Price Targets Rise, Most Bullish Forecast Pushed Higher The MarketBeat consensus price target on Meta shares sits near $849, implying roughly 20% upside. Looking at targets updated after Jan. 28 paints a slightly stronger picture: MarketBeat tracked more than 25 analysts who revised their Meta targets after the earnings release, and all but one raised their numbers. Among those updates, the average target is $870, implying about 23% upside. While not a dramatic shift, the revisions underscore that analysts have generally remained constructive on Meta even when some investors pulled back. The average of the price targets updated one week after Q3 2025 was $857, despite the stock dropping more than 10% during that window. The lowest post-Jan. 28 price target tracked by MarketBeat comes from Scotiabank at $700, implying roughly 1% downside versus the stock's Feb. 2 close near $706. The most bullish update came from Rosenblatt Securities, which increased its target from $1,117 (set after Q3) to $1,144 — the highest target MarketBeat tracked after the Q4 report — implying nearly 62% upside. Historically Conservative Forecasts Provide Potential for Upward Revisions Meta's Q4 report helped win back many investors, with shares jumping 10.4% the following day. Most Wall Street analysts remain confident in the company: Meta has beaten sales estimates in each of its last 14 earnings releases. That track record bolsters the case for further upward revisions to price targets, but markets will continue to watch Meta's spending closely and expect the company to deliver on its ambitious growth projections.
| 
