Meta Platforms (FB) Stock News and Forecast: 'End of an era' says Zuckerberg as COO Sandberg resigns

• Meta Platforms COO Sandberg to step down after 14-year tenure.
• FB shares dropped on the news by 2.6%.
• Chief Growth Officer Javier Olivan will take over as Facebook's parent company COO.

Meta Platforms (FB) stock dropped 2.6% to $188.64 Wednesday on the news that Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg was leaving the company after 14 years. Sandberg became the corporate face of Facebook's parent company to many as she was front and center on major strategic initiatives and often was interviewed alongside CEO Mark Zuckerberg during major TV appearances. 

Also read: Apple Stock Deep Dive: AAPL price target at $100 on falling 2023 revenues

Meta Platforms Stock News: Javier Olivan to replace Sandberg

"It's the end of an era," wrote Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook, the company he founded and where he remains CEO though it has now been renamed Meta Platforms. He was of course speaking about the departure of Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who announced the end of her 14-year tenure at the social media powerhouse. In many ways, Sandberg was instrumental in taking Facebook from its status as Silicon Valley's hottest independent tech unicorn in 2008 through its IPO and a number of high-profile acquisitions before building it up to become, at least momentarily, a trillion-dollar company.

Due to slowing user growth, general tumult in the equity market and a turn toward a metaverse strategy, Meta Platforms (FB) is now worth around $530 billion. It seems apt that Sandberg would choose now to leave the company as Zuckerberg has recently made controlling the metaverse his major strategy going forward for the decade. Early investor Peter Thiel left Facebook's board back in February after FB stock faced its worst earnings quarter in its history. The stock lost more than $200 billion in a single session after the Facebook platform lost sequential monthly active users for the first time in its history. 

"When Sheryl joined me in 2008, I was only 23 years old and I barely knew anything about running a company," wrote Zuckerberg in his Facebook post on Wednesday. "We'd built a great product – the Facebook website – but we didn't yet have a profitable business and we were struggling to transtion from a small startup to a real organization. Sheryl architected our ads business, hired great people, forged our management culture, and taught me how to run a company."

 

Zuckerberg has named Chief Growth Officer Javier Olivan as Meta's next COO. Olivan has been with the company for years and will now focus on ads and business products under his new role. "I think Meta has reached the point where it makes sense for our product and business groups to be more closely integrated, rather than having all the business and operations functions organized separately from our products," Zuckerberg wrote.

Meta Platforms Stock Forecast: FB stock bullish reversal on the cards?

FB stock appears to be consolidating between the $180 and $200 levels. The 9-week moving average is now right on the $200 level. This makes that level the major target for bulls. At the current level, FB shares are neutral, but a weekly close above $200 makes it worthy of purchase. As one of the largest stocks in the market, FB will continue to flounder until the overall market takes a turn for the better.

Right now, the US Federal Reserve has begun selling its treasuries, which many expect to reduce the attractiveness of equities.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) reading of 32 means Meta stock is close to the oversold range. Additionally, there is a slight RSI divergence between late February and late April. This happens when the RSI line moves against the angle of the price action and typically signals a possible reversal is in preparation. If $180 cracks, then expect a move to $169, the range low, or even $137, the covid low.

FB weekly chart

 

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