Social Media Stocks Rally as Truist Sets $1,000 Street-High Meta Target on Muse Adoption: Meta and Snap Climb 4%, Reddit Ticks Up

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) stock is at $770.07, up 4% in morning trading. That gain follows a Street-high price target that put fresh weight behind the company’s machine-learning advertising push. Other social media names are rising with it, and the biggest gains are in platforms that depend on ad budgets.

Snap (NYSE:SNAP) stock is at $6.77, up 4%, keeping pace with Meta Platforms stock in percentage terms. Additionally, Reddit (NYSE:RDDT) stock is at $163.12, up 2%, a smaller gain than the other two names.

For a sector gauge, the Global X Social Media ETF (NASDAQ:SOCL) is up 1%. Its portfolio carried Meta Platforms shares at 8.7% of net assets as of July 31. However, the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ) is down 0.4%, so the social media rally is running against a weaker background for large-cap tech.

Truist Puts a Street-High Target on Meta’s Muse Push

Truist Securities analyst Youssef Squali raised his price target on Meta Platforms stock to $1,000, matching the highest on Wall Street, and kept a Buy rating. Squali cited early adoption of the Muse AI agent, which Meta Platforms launched in early September, and added a Muse contribution to his outer-year estimates. He also rolled his valuation forward, a second factor behind the higher target.

Snap stock is extending a run that began earlier this month. Blue Duck Capital, a Snap shareholder, urged the board to raise outside capital to fund the Specs augmented reality glasses unit, which put the hardware effort at the center of the debate around Snap stock.

Scale Splits the Meta and Snap Rallies

Meta Platforms sells advertising across its social applications and funds its AI products from that cash flow. On the Q2 2026 earnings call, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg stated that Muse Image “can analyze images, improve its own work, and produce better ad variations based on advertiser input.” The company also reported that nine million small businesses were using at least one of its AI ad creative tools.

Truist’s call means Meta Platforms shares are being repriced on a product Wall Street can measure. Yet, Meta Platforms’ Q2 2026 EPS of $6.18 missed the $7.22 estimate on higher costs, legal charges and severance. Its full-year 2026 capital expenditure guidance came in at $130 billion to $145 billion to fund its AI infrastructure buildout (that spend has to land somewhere, and we identified seven of the suppliers soaking it up in a free report: here).

Snap draws a growing share of revenue from consumer subscriptions alongside advertising, and Snap stock is being repriced on what an activist investor thinks a hardware unit might be worth on its own. A bull case for Snap stock is that a separate funding structure for Specs puts a value on hardware the market currently ignores. However, skeptics argue that the unit still needs capital the company hasn’t raised.

Reddit monetizes a forum through ads and data licensing. Bulls see licensing as a cushion beyond ads; bears note its shared ad base with Meta Platforms and Snap. Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) belongs to the same ad-supported peer set, and its chief executive has called AI “a clear accelerant for our business.”

What to Watch Next

The open question for Meta Platforms is whether Muse revenue arrives on the timetable now built into the Truist target. Stay tuned for Meta’s upcoming Q3 2026 results, likely to be disclosed October 21, as investors can watch for whether management links advertiser demand to the Muse agent in that update. Meta’s spending matters just as much, since greater infrastructure costs have already weighed on earnings.

For Snap, the open item is how the board responds to Blue Duck Capital’s call for outside money. Holders sizing their Snap positions could watch for whether the board considers a separate Specs funding structure.

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