News and analysis

Meta Platforms (META), which is the owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, added nearly $48 per share to its value just less than a couple of weeks after its first daily close above $700 in mid-June. I believe that the current peak of $747.90 on June 30 technically leaves more space for further move up to at least $788, as this price target corresponds to the psychologically crucial milestone of $2 trillion in the market caps for the communications industry giant and roughly fits to some previous growth impulses for Meta stocks. It's very unlikely that Meta bulls or simply Meta realists may encounter any obstacles along this way. Anyway, I don't have the faintest idea of selling my personal stake in Meta before reaching the range between $788 and $800, and will also likely hold most of it waiting for a higher goal around $850 for the rest of the year.

In fact, an initial Wall Street's crowd response above $788 will show whether bets on a climb higher are worth worrying about. But right now there is definitely nothing to worry about, and I can be calm and happy, as there are still solid fundamental drivers behind Meta's strengthening. Recent reports have shown that Meta is embarking on a massive acquisition move, finishing advanced talks to get voice-cloning startup Play AI. Alongside bolstering its own AI research talent pool for even smarter context advertisement services, this means that Meta is ready to flesh out its consumer-facing features. Play AI lets anyone clone different kinds of voices that they can use for AI-powered use cases.

Therefore, Meta integrates some of PlayAI voice replication cutting-edge employees into its social networking projects, which are already used by almost 3.5 billion people worldwide. Meta announced significant user growth in the last quarter (Q1 2025), with its whole family of apps reaching 3.43 billion daily active users on average in March 2025, representing another 6% increase YoY, including Facebook's monthly active users increase by 3.44% for the annual period. This coincided with a quarterly EPS beat of $6.43 against $5.24 in consensus in late April. It was exactly the moment when Meta impressed the investment community with its plans to leverage more AI for ad targeting with day-to-day recommendations to visitors. Two full calendar months have passed since then, and Meta's positioning became only stronger.

Among the latest news is that Meta is hiring OpenAI researcher Trapit Bansal for its AI reasoning team, according to TechCrunch. Trapit Bansal, who left OpenAI had been with the GPT (generative pre-training transforming) pioneer company since 2022 and played a crucial role in developing reinforcement learning alongside OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever, so both of them are credited as major contributors to OpenAI’s first AI reasoning model, o1. OpenAI and Google are now rivals of Meta, which the latter may bypass on a turn.

Another story from last Friday says that Meta seeks as much as $29 billion from private capital firms like Apollo Global Management, Brookfield, Carlyle and PIMCO for growing AI data centers in the US. They invited Morgan Stanley to arrange the financing. Meta wants to raise $3 billion in equity and $26 billion more in debt, with a fundraising coming at a time when Meta has already doubled down its commitment to AI, including a $14.8 billion of recent investment in startup Scale AI. Meta's efforts are further strengthened by the fact that renewable energy developers and Meta have officially signed deals to supply 791 megawatts more of solar and wind power to operate US new data centers. The company is also seeking proposals from nuclear power developers, which the Trump administration could give the green light to.

My targets, raised to $788-800 at least and then probably further to the upside, look absolutely realistic, as even those investment houses that kept their bars low are now reviewing upwards. As an example, Oppenheimer lifted its Meta price target to $775 from $665, expecting the giant to "unlock new business with AI", citing a stronger macro and advertising backdrop. The broker maintained its Outperform rating for Meta while noting its "improved ad market conditions" even "relative to six weeks ago" and lifting sales projections for 2025 and 2026 by 4% and 1%, respectively, to grow by 17% and 15% in the nearest two years. Oppenheimer’s updated estimates are optimistic even with acknowledged risks tied to TikTok, assuming no US ban on it. Meta EPS estimates were raised by Oppenheimer to $25.41 for 2025 and $28.23 for 2026, representing annual growth of 6% and 11%.

Monero (XMR) is adding 1.1% to $313.80 this week, slightly outperforming the broader crypto market, where Bitcoin (BTC) is trading neutral at $107,566. The token had dropped below key support at $325.00 in June during heightened geopolitical tensions following U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. Prices bottomed at $288.40 — the lowest level since May 8 — before rebounding to $323.25 on Sunday amid signs of Middle East de-escalation. A continued recovery could see Monero reclaim the $325.00 level.

Additionally, following the termination of U.S. sanctions against Tornado Cash, speculation is mounting that XMR could be relisted on major crypto exchanges. If this scenario unfolds, prices could surge above $375.00 per token, driven by renewed demand and restored access.

Dogecoin (DOGE) is adding 10.1% to $0.1613 this week, slightly outperforming the broader crypto market, where Bitcoin (BTC) is rising by 8.0% to $107,010. The memecoin appears to be decoupling from the influence of Elon Musk and increasingly moving in line with Bitcoin’s broader trend. In this context, DOGE is attempting a recovery but faces a key challenge at the $0.2000 resistance level. A successful breakout could confirm a reversal, while failure to gain momentum might renew fears of a decline toward the $0.1000 area, a scenario some investors consider more probable given current uncertainties.

As an investment blogger who immediately and accurately advised everyone to buy Tesla shares below $285 after the hyping EV maker suddenly plummeted on a silly social media spat between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, I now have the moral right to celebrate each time whenever Tesla hits a new price peak. I am still more exited, as the price passed the $325 milestone after a slight price retracement for technical consolidation. Tesla soared above $350, or more precisely touched its fresh $357.50 high on June 23 , thanks to the long-awaited launch of the robotaxis service in Austin, Texas. However, the crowd likes to buy its own expectations, and then quickly sell the facts. Since Tesla's gains exceeded 25% in less than three weeks, this profit was quickly taken by so many in the market.

This short-term sell-off helped prices to drop again to test a $325+ area, which in my non-humble opinion only gives another chance to buy for every "Doubting Thomas". Of course, absolute sceptics will be convinced that the Tesla rally is justified, apparently, when it's already above $400, and that's when they're going to buy themselves a little bit of Tesla. "But I say to you, blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe", as I do not need to put my fingers on the cured wounds of Tesla image before betting on its further wave of price growth and may market gods forgive me.

It is clear that the eternal Trump haters, who are usually the adherents of the defeated woke movement as well, have also become Musk haters in 2025, and so they do not stop criticizing the launch of robotaxis anyway. Tesla sceptics are commenting that only about a dozen of electric cars are now driving Texas roads within 5 km range. Well, that's true, but it is precisely according to initial plans, which were announced from the beginning to avoid big faults. So, now only a limited number of users who receive an invitation can order such a service, and those chosen users are still mainly loyal Tesla influencers. O.K., I wasn't there yet, but the news also immediately seems to be true, and it would be strange if selected orders were given to haters who would criticize everything anyway, regardless of the actual quality of the service. There is a person in the passenger seat to monitor this stage, but this service man is not driving and does not interfere. The situation center staff are also watching, but the car is actually driving on autopilot in a self-drive mode.

The price is now fixed with Musk's favourite number of $4.20 per trip. Booking is not yet possible after midnight, the service is also limited by good weather at the moment, and haters doubt what will happen if a thunderstorm or heavy rain catches the car during the order, but why do they think that this quite usual situation is not thought out by engineers? Just why would Tesla create problems for itself at the testing stage, when the whole world's attention is so much focused on every appearance of robotaxis in the street?

According to Bloomberg, customers reported an issue with a Tesla Model Y that made an improper left turn to enter a lane for opposing traffic before crossing a double-yellow line and then returned to the correct lane. The incident was captured on video by former Tesla podcast host Rob Maurer, with audible honking from other drivers. Some other riders documented instances of Tesla’s driverless vehicles exceeding posted speed limits. As an example, one Tesla investor shared footage to show a robotaxi reaching 35 mph (miles per hour) in a 30 mph zone, while YouTuber Herbert Ong noted during a live stream that his robotic vehicle was traveling at 39 mph in a 35 mph zone. No injuries. These are all, of course, such terrible crimes, because no one else on the road allows him or her to exceed the speed limit like that, right? And I should probably immediately sell all my Tesla shares when I find out about this, right? No, of course not. I'm going to buy more right now. And I'll wait for $420, folks. See you on the upper side.