[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jae-hee] Amid the recent sharp decline in the stock price of Meta (formerly Facebook), the world's largest social media (SNS) company, it has been found that Seohak Gaemi (individual investors investing in overseas stocks) have massively purchased Meta shares.
According to the Korea Securities Depository's Securities Information Portal on the 13th, from the 6th to the 11th of this month, domestic individual investors' net purchase amount of Meta shares was $103.62 million (approximately 124.3 billion KRW).
This surpassed Alphabet ($63.36 million) and Tesla ($32.94 million), ranking first in net purchase settlement amount for overseas stocks. Last month, Meta's sell amount ($133.87 million) exceeded its buy amount ($118.34 million).
The Securities Information Portal's settlement details reflect U.S. stock trading transactions from three days prior to the given date.
Therefore, the settlement details on the 6th of this month reflect the trading on the 3rd, when Meta's stock price sharply dropped.
Meta's stock price fell by 26% on the 3rd alone. This is the largest stock price drop since Meta's IPO in 2012. Its market capitalization also evaporated by $250 billion (approximately 300.2 trillion KRW) in just one day.
This was due to Meta's fourth-quarter performance last year falling short of market expectations, along with forecasts of a slowdown in revenue growth going forward.
Meta projected its first-quarter revenue this year to be between $27 billion and $29 billion, below the market forecast of $30.15 billion. In particular, due to Apple's iOS privacy policy changes making targeted advertising more difficult, Meta expects a revenue decrease of about $10 billion this year.
Domestic investors appear to perceive the decline as excessive and view the price adjustment as a buying opportunity to purchase Meta shares at a low price.
However, it seems unlikely that Seohak Gaemi's low-price purchases will yield profits.
Seo Young-jae, a researcher at Daishin Securities, analyzed, "Currently, Meta's multiple (enterprise value relative to profitability) has dropped to as low as 18 times the price-to-earnings ratio (PER), which is very low. From a multiples perspective, the burden has been removed, so a slight short-term rebound is possible, but it is difficult to expect a sustained upward trend."
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