Analyst Says Meta Platforms (META) Has ‘Caught Up To’ TikTok

We recently published a list of Top 10 Stocks to Watch as AI Trade Dynamics Change. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) stands against other top stocks to watch as AI trade dynamics change.

Aswath Damodaran from NYU Stern School of Business said in a recent program on CNBC that AI “buzzwords” are not boosting the market anymore as investors grow more concerned about capital spending.

“I’ve said about data centers we’ve gotten way ahead of the game. I mean, the AI product and service business, which ultimately is what has to pay for all of this, has not taken off in any substantial way. I’m hard-pressed to think about any company making significant money from the AI product and service business.”

Damodaran said that the “sobering” of the AI trade started in September last year and the DeepSeek breakthrough in China also had an impact on the industry.

“It’s part of, I think, what you see almost every buzzword in history in the last four decades. I call these the ‘bar mitzvah moment,’ where people wake up and say, ‘Okay, there’s a lot of promise here, but show me something that I can hang my hat on.’”

READ ALSO: 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In

For this article, we picked 10 stocks Wall Street analysts have been talking about lately. With each stock, we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

Gil C / Shutterstock.com

Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 235

John Belton from Gabelli Funds said in a latest interview with Schwab Network that competition from TikTok has “come and gone” for Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META).

“TikTok is the more direct competition for Meta. I think there’s a little bit more overlap between their users and the type of time that TikTok is competing for. It’s really more overlap with Meta. A couple of years ago, Meta came under a lot of pressure when TikTok usage was really rising. I think what Meta and Google, for that matter, have been able to do over the last couple of years is start to play a little more of TikTok’s game, specifically on Google with YouTube. They’ve used AI to drive better content recommendations and improve user engagement, which is something TikTok was so successful at years ago. I think Meta and Google have really caught up to TikTok over the last two years on that front. Looking forward, I think the peak competition from TikTok has already come and gone.”