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Shares of Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) were down about 9% in premarket trading on Thursday. It follows what can only be described as a mixed bag of a quarter-three earnings report on Wednesday, October 30. On the one hand, Meta announced $51.2 billion in revenue, a 26% increase year-over-year (YOY) from $40.6 billion and a quarterly record for the company. The boost also beat Wall Streets estimate of $49.6 billion, according to consensus estimates cited by Bloomberg. However, Meta also reported a non-cash income tax charge of $15.93 billion. This one-time charge led to a significant decrease83%in Metas net income YOY. It also meant the companys earnings per share dropped to $1.05 from 2024s $6.03. While the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads points out that its earnings per share would have been $7.25 without the tax charge, in reality it severely missed Wall Streets predicted $6.70, according to consensus estimates cited by the Guardian. “Our compute needs have continued to expand” Meta also increased its estimated total expenses for 2025, from between $114 billion and $118 billion to $116 billion and $118 billion. Similarly, its estimated capital expenditures for the year rose to $70 billion to $72 billion, up from a range of $66 billion to $72 billion. Why the higher numbers? It all comes down to AI. In an earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that despite building an aggressive assumption worth of AI infrastructure, the demand keeps increasing in a way that is very likely to be a profitable thing. He claimed that there are more than a billion people actively using Meta AI on a monthly basis. As we have begun to plan for next year, it’s become clear that our compute needs have continued to expand meaningfully, including versus our own expectations last quarter, Zuckerberg stated. We are still working through our capacity plans for next year, but we expect to invest aggressively to meet these needs, both by building our own infrastructure and contracting with third-party cloud providers. Zuckerberg does admit that there could be unnecessary overflow, but he claims that it could be converted into intelligence and better recommendations for Metas family of apps and advertisements. He further shared that capital expenditures and total expenses will be significantly higher in 2026 than 2025, due to infrastructure and employee compensation costs. Notably, Meta laid off 600 people from its AI superintelligence research lab just last week. By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact, Meta chief AI officer Alexandr Wang stated in a memo about the layoffs. Zuckerberg only announced the new superintelligence lab in June.
Category:
E-Commerce
Fast-casual restaurant chain Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) is seeing its stock price plummet this morning after reporting third-quarter 2025 earnings and a sales forecast that alarmed investors. As of the time of this writing, CMG shares are down a staggering 19% to $32.21 in premarket trading. Heres what you need to know about the companys stock price crash. Whats happened? On Wednesday, Chipotle reported its Q3 2025 earnings after the bell. Some of what the company revealed has alarmed investors. But first, here are the companys most critical quarterly metrics: Total revenue: $3 billion (a 7.5% increase) Comparable restaurant sales: up 0.3% Operating margin: 15.9% (down 1% point) Adjusted diluted earnings per share: $0.29 (up 7.4%) Stores opened: 84 As noted by CNBC, Chipotles adjusted EPS of 29 cents matched investor expectations, and its $3 billion in revenue came close to the $3.03 billion expected by LSEG analysts. However, while Chipotle’s main Q3 metrics largely met expectations, the companys forecast led investors to dump the stock in the hours after it reported its latest earnings. Full-year comparable sales expected to decline Investors generally arent happy with only their expectations being met. They want unlimited growth into the future, too. A perceived lack of future growth can send investors fleeingand that appears to be what is happening to Chipotles stock in premarket trading. After reporting its relatively expected Q3 results, Chipotle issued its full fiscal 2025 forecast, revealing that it was cutting its sales outlook. For the full fiscal year (the company is now in its Q4 2025), Chipotle says it expects full year comparable restaurant sales declines in the low-single digit range. This is the third time in a row that the restaurant chain has cut its sales forecasts. Back in February, the company had initially said that it expected full-year sales to increase by low-to-mid single digits. Why the gloomy outlook? As for the factors affecting its lowered sales forecast, Chiptole CEO Scott Boatwright cited several reasons on the companys investor call. As consumer sentiment has declined sharply throughout the year, Chipotle stores have seen a broad-based pullback in frequency of customer visits, Boatwright said. This is especially true for low- to middle-income customers, which Boatwright says include households earning less than $100,000, representing about 40% of Chiptoles total customer base. Boatwright says this segment of customers is dining out less often due to concerns about the economy and inflation. However, another segment of Chipotle customers is also having a large negative impact on Chipotles revenue as they cut back on visits, too. This segment comprises younger people aged 25 to 35. Boatwright says this cohort is facing particular economic challenges, leading them to pull back on discretionary spending. Those challenges include unemployment, increased student loan repayment and slower real wage growth. We believe that this trend is not unique to Chipotle, Boatwright noted, and is occurring across all restaurants as well as many discretionary categories. At the same time, Chipotle may rely more heavily on younger diners than other chains. “We tend to skew younger and slightly over-indexed to this group relative to the broader restaurant industry,” Boatwright said. Forging ahead with new store openings Despite projecting full-year 2025 sales declines, Chipotle says it will expand its physical store footprint significantly in 2026. While the opening of new stores increases operational expenses, it could also help the company boost sales by expanding into new markets where no Chipotle stores exist or where the company is underrepresented. In 2025, Chitpotle said it will open between 315 and 345 locations by the end of the fiscal year. In 2026, the company said it expects to open even more stores. We anticipate opening between 350 and 370 new restaurants, Boatwright revealed. The CEO noted that these will include 10 to 15 new partner-operated restaurants outside of North America. Countries where these restaurants are expected to open include South Korea, Singapore, and Mexico, as well as parts of the Middle East. Chiptole also expects to open one or two company-owned stores in Europe. CMG share price plummets But investors seem to care little about Chipotles continued expansion and are instead focused on the companys lowered sales forecast. As of the time of this writing, CMG shares have declined 19% in premarket trading to $32.21 per share. Thats a low that Chipotle’s stock price hasn’t seen since 2023. As of yesterdays share price close of $39.76, CMG stock had declined more than 33% since the beginning of the year. At just above $32 per share in premarket trading this morning, Chipotles share price is now nearly half of what it was on the first trading day of 2025.
Category:
E-Commerce
If youve been eager to try cultivated meatmeat grown from cells, without the need to raise an entire animalyour options, so far, have been limited. The innovation has only appeared on a handful of restaurant menus since its approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) But if youre in the Bay Area, youre in luck: Cultivated meat startup Mission Barns will be selling its pork meatballs (made with a base of pea protein plus the companys cultivated pork fat) at Berkeley Bowl West, one location of an independent grocery store in California. [Photo: Mission Barns] It marks the first retail sale of cultivated meat in the United States, though the products are available for just one day only: Saturday, November 1. That said, those in the area will have more chances to try Mission Barnss cultivated meat products. Along with the one-day sale, the company is hosting four in-store tastings at Berkeley Bowl, offering samples of its pork meatballs on November 1, January 17, and February 21, plus tastings of its cultivated pork salami on December 12. [Photo: Mission Barns] Cultivated meat in restaurants Cultivated meat (also called cell-cultured meat or lab-grown meat, though some in the industry contest that moniker) is still a nascent field. Mission Barns first launched in 2018. Others like Upside Foods, which makes cultured chicken, and Wildtype, which develops cultivated fish, have been around just a little longersince 2015 and 2016, respectively. U.S. regulators approved the first sales of cultivated meat in 2023. And since then, a variety of call-cultured options have made a few brief appearances on restaurant menus. (That move followed Singapores 2020 approval of cultivated meat, and cultured meat has been sold both in restaurants and in retail in Singapore, like in the frozen section of a butchery.) The Michelin-starred Bar Crenn in San Francisco briefly sold Upsides chicken. Chef José Andrés piloted cultured chicken from Good Meat (owned by Eat Just) at his China Chilcano DC eatery. Otoko, a sushi restaurant in Austin, Texas, offered Wildtype salmon last summer (but stopped selling it after Texas lawmakers enacted a cultivated meat ban). Mission Barns, too, debuted its cultivated pork meatballs and bacon at a few exclusive dinners at Fiorella in San Francisco this past September. But cultured meat hasnt yet been sold in a grocery store in the United States, until November 1. Mission Barns CEO Cecilia Chang says the startup picked Berkeley Bowl for this milestone because it has a track record for innovation; its been an early adopter of new plant-based brands. A 12 pack of the cultivated pork meatballs will be on sale for $13.99. Mission Barns CEO Cecilia Chang [Photo: Mission Barns] Mission Barns’s focus on fats Though a handful of statesincluding Texas, Florida, and Alabamahave moved to ban cultivated meat even before its widespread availability, Chang doesnt see cultured meat as controversial. I think people don’t know that much about it, she says. The in-store tasting series is a way to build up that consumer awareness and education. Mission Barns is collaborating with researchers from Tufts Universitys Center for Cellular Agriculture, who will observe the tastings to see how people react and talk about such products in a setting outside of a focus group. Mission Barns hopes to get crucial insights, too. Though the startup has created a handful of products under its own namelike meatballs, bacon, pepperoni, and salamiit doesnt ultimately aim to be its own brand. Instead, its a B2B company, focused on selling its cultivated fats as ingredients to consumer packaged goods partners. That focus on fat makes Mission Barns unique in the cultivated space; the startup isnt creating entire cuts of cultured meat like other companies. Fat is really where a lot of that delicious, meaty, umami flavor comes from, Chang says. And Mission Barns sees these fats as a next generation functional flavoring ingredient that can go into alternative proteins or other savory applications. [Photo: Mission Barns] Through the cell cultured process, the company can also tune its process to tweak nutrition details, like lowering the saturated fat and cholesterol or adding in more omega 3s. That includes plant-based meats like Mission Barnss meatballs and bacon, or possibly soups, sauces, and so on. The products that will be on offer at Berkeley Bowl are like a proof of concept for cultivated fat as an ingredient, and a way to show other CPG companies what Mission Barns can offer. Working with established food brands also means Mission Barns wont have to focus on building up its own brand, retail partners, and so on. From our perspective, B2B is a much faster way to scale and grow, Chang says. The startup already has partnerships in the works, though couldnt name specific companies. For those who taste its offerings at Berkeley Bowl and want to know how to be customers in the future, “We’ll be telling them to watch the space, Chang says. Well hopefully be launching something in retail with a partner sometime next year.
Category:
E-Commerce
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