META stock price: META stock price crashed but why? Is there any bigger threat looms for META Platforms Inc?

META shares fell over one percent. This comes after major tech firms’ planned $600 billion AI spend in 2026 has raised investors’ unease, as it is seen as a potential existential threat for software firms, as well as implications for profitability. Shares of Amazon, which announced $200 billion in capital expenditures, lost 7 percent on Friday, while Alphabet lost 3 percent after the company said Wednesday that capital spending could double this year.

“From the market’s perspective, we think the AI ​​development business and the way it’s pulling all those gains forward over many years is very expensive,” said Andrew Wells, chief investment officer at SanJac Alpha in Houston. “That doesn’t mean the trade is over, but it’s become too expensive to pull forward all these potential future revenues and not really price the risk into all of that. So it’s a de-risked trade.”

Meanwhile, shares of data analytics firms remained under selling pressure on concerns that they face an existential threat from powerful new artificial intelligence models.

Canada-based Thomson Reuters, which had a record one-day drop earlier this week, lost 0.7%. London-listed RELX shares lost 4.6%, marking a 17% decline in their worst week since 2020.

The S&P 500 software and services index has fallen nearly 8% this week and has seen nearly $1 trillion in market value evaporate since January 28.

St. in London “The headlines that would push stocks to new highs during the peak of AI optimism are now being interpreted much more carefully by investors,” said Carlota Estragues Lopez, stock strategist at James’s Place.
“It’s not just the return on investment that worries investors, but also the risk of narrow market leadership struggling to expand beyond a handful of mega-cap names.”