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Don’t click that “buy” button just yet! Meta Platforms (META)<\/strong> might look appetizing to some dip buyers after Wednesday’s earnings massacre, but even a quick glance at the daily chart tells us that the downside for META from here offers more possibilities.<\/p>\n Mark Zuckerberg’s company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, missed extravagantly on GAAP earnings per share (EPS) for the third quarter of 2025 on Wednesday. Meta posted GAAP EPS of $1.05, an incredible 84% lower than Wall Street’s $6.71 consensus. The shortfall is owed nearly exclusively to an almost $16 billion one-time tax charge caused by the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was passed earlier this year.<\/p>\n That allowed META stock<\/a> to slide more than 11% on Thursday, and Friday has seen new lows.<\/p>\n Many retail investors know that buying Mag 7 stocks following large downward swings always seems to work out in the end. And in that sense, we agree. There are a number of reasons to believe strongly in Meta’s return to new highs.<\/p>\n First, while causing an unexpected pullback in Meta’s share price, the government tax bill will reduce taxes substantially over the long run. In fact, Meta’s top brass think the lower tax rates<\/a> will boost earnings as soon as Q4.<\/p>\n Then there’s the adjusted earnings. If we discard the one-time tax charge, adjusted EPS arrived at $7.25, a full $0.58 ahead of the analyst consensus. This means that adjusted earnings, the figure that most investors focus on over the long term, rose 20% from a year earlier.<\/p>\n Ad impressions delivered across the Family of Apps segment increased by 14% on an annual basis in Q3, while average price per ad increased by 10% YoY. This tells us that pricing power and demand remain robust, while Zuckerberg said that Facebook Reels has reached a $50 billion per annum run rate. The company’s prized possession doesn’t appear to be slowing down.<\/p>\n If anything is bothering the market, it’s likely the intense level of capex going into Meta’s AI investments. The already heady $69 billion mid-level estimate for 2025 was pushed up during the earnings call by an extra $2 billion. Like the company’s Reality Labs side hustle, which lost another $4 billion during Q3 as it had for the five previous quarters, the AI investments are likely years away from turning a profit if at all.<\/p>\nMeta Platforms stock news<\/h2>\n