JPMorgan has added Meta Platforms to its Analyst Focus List in place of Alphabet, and the stock is up 5.21% on the move. At 11:57 a.m. ET Meta trades at $641.94, against a November 6 close of 610.15, after a range of $630 to $644.54 in a session that is still open. The whole Nasdaq is recovering from last week’s selloff in AI names, but Meta’s extra push carries JPMorgan’s signature.
The reshuffle by Doug Anmuth, who covers the large internet groups for the bank, keeps Amazon in place. JPMorgan’s top picks in the sector are now Meta and Amazon. The reason sits in one line of the note: “After third-quarter results, Meta’s relative strength in advertising is more evident than ever” (our translation).
The rating does not change. JPMorgan upgraded Meta to Overweight in September and set no new price target today. The signal is what counts. The focus list gathers the ideas the bank is most exposed on, and choosing Meta over Alphabet says which of the two online advertising giants, in the analyst’s view, is already cashing in on its artificial intelligence investments.
Meta versus Alphabet: who is already monetizing AI
The comparison plays out on incremental revenue. By JPMorgan’s calculations, Meta brought in roughly $13 billion more in advertising in the third quarter than a year earlier, broadly twice what Google Search added. The credit goes to the AI models that select and target ads, making them more effective for the companies buying them. Hence the estimate that makes the most noise: from the fourth quarter of 2026, advertising across Meta’s apps should overtake Google search in revenue.
The official numbers behind those projections are solid. In its third-quarter results release, published October 21, Meta reported revenue of $64.6 billion, up 26% year over year. Volume was only part of it. Ad impressions rose 10%, while the average price per ad rose 14%: advertisers are paying more for space that evidently delivers more. North American ad revenue grew 33%.
On Alphabet the note is less harsh than the removal suggests. The rating stays Overweight. But Google Search growth slowed to 12% in the third quarter, after 19% in the first and 17% in the second, and free cash flow was negative for the second consecutive quarter. Google Cloud keeps the flag flying, with revenue more than doubling (+103%). Amazon holds its place thanks to AWS, up 39%, for which the group expects a pace above 40% in 2027 and 2028. The duel between the two advertising giants had already played out in the market in late October, when Meta rebounded 3.6% while Alphabet moved the other way.
The open questions
Today’s gain starts from a low base. The day after the quarterly report the stock lost about 7% in a single session, and at Friday’s close it was down more than 15% over one month. The reason has a precise name: the bill for the AI race. Meta expects capital spending of $135 billion to $145 billion for 2026, and in the third quarter alone capital expenditure of $34.9 billion pushed free cash flow into the red by $2.1 billion.
To sustain that pace the group has turned to investors with a capital raise of roughly $95 billion, described in our article on Meta’s request for $95 billion from shareholders to fund AI. In the background there is also the new class C share, with no voting rights, which takes effect on January 19, 2027 and will be distributed as a stock dividend, one for each class A or B share. The effect on the class A price will be similar to a two-for-one split.
Not all of tech is moving the same way today. Meta and Amazon lead the gains and Alphabet rises too, despite JPMorgan’s slight. Nvidia is down between 5% and 7% over the course of the day, held back by its chief executive’s personal disclosures, reconstructed in our article on the Huang case and the risks for Nvidia.
The technical picture
On the chart, today’s jump carries a specific weight. On Friday Meta closed below its 200-day moving average, which runs through $613.01. Today it cleared that line along with the 100-day average at $634.48, which becomes the first level to watch if selling returns. Higher up sit the short- and medium-term averages, at $662.67 (20 days) and $675.70 (50 days). As long as the price stays below those levels, the short-term trend cannot be called reversed.
The oscillators counsel the same caution. The 14-day RSI, at 36.8 as of Friday’s close, describes a stock that is still weak but not oversold, while the 52-week high, the $779.82 reached on September 24, is almost 18% away. Closing that gap will take more than a broker’s note: the AI investments will have to start showing up in cash flow, not just in revenue.
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Editor’s note
This article was originally published in Italian on money.it by Ufficio Studi Money.it on November 09, 2026 as «Meta sale del 5% in Borsa: JPMorgan la preferisce ad Alphabet per la forza della pubblicità con l’AI». It has been translated and adapted for an international audience by the Money.it International desk.
