Meta stock sinks following missed earnings

Meta's stock was more than 7% lower on Thursday in early trade, following its earnings miss the day before. 

At the time of writing shares in Meta were trading hands at $156.95, down about 7.7% after the open according to Nasdaq data. Shares in the tech giant had traded down in after-hours trading on Wednesday, following poor earnings in the second quarter. 

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, told The Block that today's move represents a loss of $34 billion of market cap. This takes the total drop from the September 1, 2021 peak of $1.08 trillion to $653 billion.

As well as missing on earnings and revenue for the second quarter the firm reported losses of $2.8 billion for its metaverse-focused division, Reality Labs. This follows $2.9 billion in losses for the division in the first quarter.

Mark Zuckerberg's company has positioned itself to capitalize on the opportunities available in the meteverse industry. However, this task was made considerably more difficult on Wednesday as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a suit against Facebook, alleging the company is trying to monopolize the entire metaverse industry.