Meta Platforms Is Down 11% in a Month While Alphabet Is Up 16%. What’s Going On?

David Moadel

Mon, May 18, 2026 at 3:26 PM EDT 4 min read

Quick Read

• Meta Platforms (META) stock is down 11% over the past month after the company raised its full-year 2026 capex guidance to $125-145 billion with no clear discrete revenue line attributed to AI spending.

• Meanwhile, Alphabet (GOOGL) stock is up 16% following Q1 2026 results showing that Google Cloud revenue grew 63% to $20.03 billion with a $460 billion backlog and Search revenue rose 19% to $60.4 billion.

• The market is rewarding Alphabet for showing tangible AI-driven revenue gains across Cloud, Search, and Ads, while penalizing Meta for aggressive AI investment without a corresponding visible revenue attribution that mirrors Alphabet’s demonstrated returns.

• The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 stocks and Google wasn't one of them. Get them here FREE.

Two of the largest names in digital advertising have moved in opposite directions over the past month, and the gap is striking. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) stock is down 11% over the trailing month, while Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) stock is up 16% in the same time frame. Both reported their financial results on April 29, and the market clearly chose a winner.

META shares last traded near $611, with the stock off by less than 1% on the session. Meanwhile, GOOGL stock is changing hands close to $399, up slightly for the day, after a year-to-date gain of 27%. The divergence is recent; over five years, META stock is still up 97% and GOOGL shares are up 252%.

The analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 stocks and Google wasn't one of them. Get them here FREE.

Why Alphabet Is Ripping

Alphabet's Q1 2026 earnings report did the heavy lifting. Google Cloud revenue grew 63% year over year to $20.03 billion, and the cloud backlog nearly doubled quarter on quarter to over $460 billion. That backlog gave investors a tangible AI revenue line to point to.

Search, the franchise the market once feared AI would eat, instead accelerated. Google Search & Other revenue rose 19% to $60.4 billion, with CEO Sundar Pichai noting "queries at an all time high". Waymo also surpassed 500,000 fully autonomous rides per week.

The bull case got a high-profile endorsement last weekend. A widely circulated post titled "Berkshire just tripled its GOOGL stake and bought Delta again" drew strong engagement on Reddit, with sentiment scores hitting 83 (very bullish).

Why Meta Is Underperforming

Meta Platforms' headline EPS of $10.44 versus $6.66 estimated included a sizable one-time benefit that investors discounted. A $8.03 billion one-time tax benefit tied to Treasury Notice 2026-7 added $3.13 per share to the result.