New York, February 20, 2026, 17:46 EST — After-hours.
- Meta shares rose about 1.7% after hours, tracking a late-week lift in U.S. megacaps
- A report said Meta trimmed annual stock awards by about 5% for most employees
- Investors are also weighing a revived smartwatch plan and a youth-harm jury trial featuring CEO Mark Zuckerberg
Meta Platforms shares were up 1.7% at $655.66 in after-hours trading on Friday, after ranging from $639.00 to $663.16 during the session.
The move followed a report that Meta cut annual stock awards by about 5% for most employees, a second straight yearly reduction as Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg leans harder into artificial intelligence spending. Meta has forecast 2026 capital spending of $115 billion to $135 billion and is building several gigawatt-scale U.S. data centers, including one in rural Louisiana that President Donald Trump said would cost $50 billion; Meta declined to comment. (Reuters)
The timing matters because markets have turned sensitive to how quickly Big Tech can turn AI spending into cash, and investors are looking for clues from chipmakers and their biggest customers. “It’s hard for Nvidia to surprise when everyone expects it to surprise,” Marta Norton, chief investment strategist at Empower, said in a note on the week ahead for AI-linked stocks. (Reuters)
U.S. stocks ended higher on Friday after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s global tariffs, pushing investors back into large growth names, with communication services the top S&P 500 sector gainer. The S&P 500 rose 0.69% and the Nasdaq gained 0.90%. (Reuters)
Meta has also been back in the hardware headlines. The company plans to revive its “Malibu 2” smartwatch project for release later this year, the Information reported, with health tracking and a built-in Meta AI assistant; Meta declined to comment. The report also flagged shipments of Meta-powered Ray-Ban smartglasses nearing 6 million units last year, and said the company has multiple augmented- and mixed-reality devices in development. (Reuters)
A Los Angeles jury trial is another live overhang. Zuckerberg denied in testimony that Instagram targets children and pushed back on claims about designing the app to hook younger users, telling the court a lawyer was “mischaracterising what I am saying,” according to a Reuters report from the proceedings. Meta faces potential damages, while rivals Snap and TikTok settled with the plaintiff before the trial began. (Reuters)
For investors, the story is getting more complicated: Meta is tightening parts of employee pay while talking up an expensive infrastructure build, and at the same time it is trying to broaden its bets beyond ads with new devices.
But the trade can still break the wrong way. Big capital spending can pinch margins and free cash flow if revenue growth slows, compensation cuts can hurt retention in a tight talent market, and the youth-harm case could land an adverse verdict or extend legal uncertainty.
Next up, traders will watch Nvidia’s quarterly results on Wednesday, February 25 — and management commentary on customer demand — for a read-through on the AI buildout that Meta and other large buyers are funding. (Nvidia)
