Facebook hasn’t been this affordable since the pandemic’s inception.
Shares of Facebook parent company Meta are at their lowest level since March 2020 after falling 14% for the week to close at $146.29; earlier on Friday, they had fallen even lower. Over the past year, Meta has lost 61% of its value, more than doubling the decline in the Nasdaq Composite and by far the greatest decline among Big Tech firms.
Meta has been declining for five days in a row and is currently trading barely 28 cents above its closing price from March 16, 2020, when the beginning of COVID-19 put American equities into free fall.

Meta will drop to its lowest level since January 2019 if it drops below $146.01. At that time, Facebook was still coping with the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica Scandal, which put consumers’ trust in the social media firm to the test and sparked a flurry of contentious congressional hearings.
Even so, Facebook was nevertheless able to increase the number of active users in the United States during that quarter, albeit by a mere 1%.

The press for CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the firm has largely been negative ever since Meta’s name was formally changed last October. Apple’s iOS privacy upgrade made it more challenging for the business to target adverts, and TikTok, a social media competitor that has grown in popularity, has driven users and advertisers away from the app. While this is happening, many businesses are cutting back on their web marketing budgets due to the slowing economy.

As it posted second-quarter earnings that missed on the top and bottom lines, Meta stated in July that it anticipated a second consecutive period of dropping sales.